Pieces of My Mind
by drakensis
Summary: A collection of plot bunnies that don't seem to be forming full stories. Various series.
1. Ignorance

"Well now! Your problem isn't so terrible after all!" Soun declared, turning Ranma by the shoulder so that they were looking at the three sisters. "Look! My eldest daughter, Kasumi! She's nineteen." She also looked shell-shocked, particularly compared to the impassive look on the next sister's face. "My second daughter, Nabiki. She's seventeen. And my third daughter, Akane. She's sixteen." Akane, if anything, looked terrified by Ranma. "Pick anyone you want," Soun instructed. "She'll be your fiancee."

"It's settled then," Kasumi said instantly, holding her youngest sister's shoulders. "It's Akane."

"Yes, they're made for each other," Nabiki agreed.

"This isn't funny!" Akane protested, glaring at Nabiki. "Why does it have to be me?"

"You hate boys, right?" Nabiki asked her.

"That's right!" Kasumi continued. "How fortunate that Ranma is half-girl!"

"No way!" Akane exclaimed. "Don't expect me to marry that hentai!"

Ranma gave her a perplexed look, then examined the faces of everyone in the room quickly. It was Soun that the young martial artist turned to for answers. "What in the world are you all talking about?" she asked. "What is a fiancee? What is this marry thing that your daughters want Akane to do? And who and what is this hentai she is talking about?"

"You're the hentai!" Akane shouted, then paused and joined her sisters in giving Ranma an astonished look.

"Eh?" Ranma said and blinked. "I am a hentai?" She frowned. "But what does that mean?"

Soun gave Genma a confused look and then patted Ranma on the shoulder. "Er, your fiancee is the person that you will marry," he explained carefully.

"Then why is Akane supposed to marry?" Ranma enquired. "If I am to have a fiancee then would I not be the person who marries?"

Kasumi opened and closed her mouth helplessly but Nabiki gave Ranma an accusing stare. "You expect us to believe that you don't know what marriage is? Weren't your parents married?"

"Of course we are!" Genma shouted indignantly.

"Parents?" Three guesses who asked that.

"Your mother and father!" Nabiki snapped. "You can't possibly be that stupid."

Ranma spread her hands helplessly. "I know what a father is," she said hesitantly. "Him over there. But what is a mother?"

"The woman he's married to..." Nabiki said and then tailed off at the blank look in Ranma's eyes. "Oh don't try to tell me that you don't know what I'm talking about."

"But I don't!" Ranma shouted, a flare of anger in her blue eyes. "What is a parent that my father is one and some woman is my mother - whatever you mean by that!? You know nothing about martial arts compared to me, why should I know all this stuff just because you do!"

Soun gulped and backed off from Ranma, who was practically glowing with anger. "Er, ah, Saotome, I think that this really is a father's responsibility..."

"WHAT ARE YOU HIDING FROM ME, OLD MAN!" Ranma shrieked, her voice reaching a distinctly unpleasant pitch.

"Marriage," Nabiki said, her voice laced with sarcasm, "is 'the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law'."

There was a long pause and then Ranma shook her head. "Okay, that raises more questions than I had. First, 'marriage' is something to do with 'marry'?"

"To marry is to enter into a marriage," Kasumi said softly. "How can you possibly not know this?"

"And how would you expect me to learn this?" Ranma asked. "I don't go out of my way to learn esoteric information, you know?"

"There's nothing esoteric about it," Kasumi protested. "Your parents were married, your father said so."

"Yes, yes. So there was some 'consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law' between Pops and some woman - this mother person I apparently have or had. So what? I only know what half those words mean, how can it have anything to do with me?"

"How can you not even know who your mother is?" Nabiki asked. "How can you not even care?" She could see tears trickling down her father's face as he remembered her mother. "She was the most important person in the world to you. She carried you for nine months and you say she has nothing to do with you!?"

"Pops carried me around until I could walk - and he's a useless fat lump!"

"Not like that," Akane corrected him. "Nabiki means your mother carried you inside her, before you were born." She shook her head at Ranma's blank look. "Kami! Where do you think babies come from?"

Ranma blinked. "Er... I dunno. Never thought about it."

"What did you think about?" Nabiki asked, a bitter edge in her voice. "Assuming that you ever have."

"That ain't such a nice thing to say," Ranma noted. "I think plenty. You think I could get so good at the Art if I didn't?"

"WhatEVER," Nabiki snorted. "Any more questions?"

"Consensual? Contractual? Hentai?" Ranma suggested, pronouncing each carefully.

"Consensual means that everyone agrees to something. Contractual means legally binding. Hentai," Kasumi explained, with a slight blush, "means abnormal or improper. It can also mean transformed," she added quickly, knowing full well that Akane had not meant it in that way. "But it's probably best not to describe yourself that way, Ranma. It, er, often means... when I say improper I mean, oh dear..."

"Sexually improper," Nabiki smirked.

"Sexually?" Ranma asked innocently.

Akane gawped. "You... don't know that either?" she asked weakly.

Ranma's gaze was withering. "Nope. And if consensual means what your sister said then we can't get married. 'Cause we'd both have to agree to it and you don't. I don't see what the big deal is but since it's not happening, I guess I don't care."

"You must marry Akane!" Genma declared. "This is a matter of family honour!"

"How?" Ranma asked. "What does family honour have to do with marriage?"

There was a stunned silence.

"Because of oath that Saotome and I took to join the schools," Soun explained carefully. "This is an agreement between our families and for either of you to refuse would stain the honour of both families."

Ranma frowned. "That's not my fault," he said reasonably. "Akane has two sisters. Although if they're trying to make her marry me and she doesn't want to, then it's them who are rejecting the agreement. I don't have anything to do with that. Since it's a matter of family honour and it's members of your family that are objecting, that makes getting one of them to agree your problem."

"And you'll marry whoever agrees?" Nabiki said sarcastically. "No further objections?"

"It doesn't seem like such a big deal," Ranma said frankly. "We do this marriage thing, then I can get back to my life and you can get on with yours. Honour is satisfied and we don't have to look at each other anymore. Frankly, I don't want to have any more to do with any of you than I absolutely have to."

Akane tried to break the table over Ranma's head and then dropped it as Ranma casually vanished, only to reappear on top of it, his added weight making it too heavy for her to continue holding. Nabiki's face was pale with anger and the slightest expression of dismay had crossed Kasumi's face. He turned to look at the two father's and recoiled as he saw Soun's head, vastly inflated and breathing smoke and flames.

"HOW DARE YOU INSULT MY FAMILY!" the Tendo patriarch bellowed.

"Whaddaya mean, 'insult'?" Ranma exclaimed. "I ain't said anything bad about you, just that I don't wanna be around ya? And you actin' like this is why! You're all nuts!"

.oOo.

Soun looked at Genma. "The curse is looking less and less like a problem, old friend..." he said solemnly.

"I'm glad that you see it like that, Soun-old-buddy," Genma replied, perking up slightly.

"...if only in comparison to your son's attitude," Soun finished.

"Oh."

"We need to take steps, Genma. If the boy were to just leave then all our plans are for nothing."

"He won't do that," Genma assured the Tendo patriarch. "I admit that his ignorance is an unforeseen problem, but look on the bright side. He can't survive without someone to deal with anything outside the martial arts. And I'm the only person that he knows, so he literally can't leave me. So long as I stay here, he has to stay here with us."

Soun brightened. "That's perfect! And once he's married to one of my daughters he'll be left dependent upon her! He can carry on the schools, and his wife can do the actual running of the household... that's brilliant!"

Genma beamed. "I rather thought so, old friend."

"Of course, these days things are so much more complicated," Soun said thoughtfully. "There's paperwork and so forth... You should send him to school with Akane and Nabiki. That will give them a chance to fall in love."

"School?" Genma frowned. "Well, if you say so, old friend. I can't say I like taking the time away from his training, but if it helps the marriage..."

"Besides," Soun added absently. "I suppose it must have been difficult for his schooling, to move around as much as you have. They expect sensei's to have college degrees these days, you know, so he'll want to get caught up."

"College?" Genma asked faintly.

Soun nodded. "Ridiculous, isn't it? But we have to move with the times..." He held up the bottle of sake they were sharing and tilted it thoughtfully. "How strange... this is empty. When did that happen?" He cracked the seal on a second bottle, thus missing the worried look on Genma's face as he desperately tried to remember what sort of education was needed to get into a college. He was almost certain that being able to read would be necessary...

.oOo.

"Akane will be fine," Nabiki called down from the classroom window. "This happens every day!"

Ranma shook his head. "This early in the morning?" he muttered. "At least at the last school they'd wait until lunch so there was something to fight over." He looked down and saw that Akane had already polished off her attackers. "And none of them are any challenge, even for her - this school sucks."

"Honestly!" Akane declared. "Every single morning! I'm getting tired of it." No sooner had she spoken than a projectile came flying at her.

Ranma raised an eyebrow as he saw her pluck it out of the air. A rose. Interesting choice of weapon, might mean that the guy throwing it had a decent move from the speed it had moved at - but his aim must have been off, because that would have gone right past her face if she hadn't caught it.

The guy who stepped out from under the tree looked more like a kendoist through - wearing dogi and hakama, carrying a bokuto like he knew how to use it. Pah. Boring. Still, maybe he'd have some talent. There had to be something around here that was worth Ranma's time.

"...such a boorish lot," the boy was saying (Ranma had tuned out the prefight monologue in favour of looking him over for any signs of actual skill). "Evidently each of them thought to date with you... on the dawn of the day they finally defeated you, that is. They should learn their limitations."

Akane backed up a few paces and started to work her way around the boy, only for him to bring his 'blade' around. "Well then, Akane Tendo. Will you spar with me?"

Ranma tugged at his ear. 'Date with her' - odd phrase. Generally he'd ignore it - perhaps defeating the girl would be so noteworthy that the victor would want to record the event somehow? - but there had been many words yesterday that he would have ignored if they hadn't seemed to relate to him. Possibly he should pay more attention to them.

"Hey, Akane," he said, hopping down from the wall. "Is this 'date with' business anything I should be worried about?"

"Get out of the way," she hissed. "You'll get hurt."

The challenger's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You there!" he snapped, pointing at Ranma with his bokuto. "Aren't you being awfully familiar with Akane?"

Ranma blinked. "Whaddaya mean? I'm just askin' a question. You asked her a question yourself so what's your problem?"

The boy stepped forward with what Ranma was pretty sure was anger visible on his face. "Enough of your insolence! I demand to know who you are!"

"I'm -"

"Is it not the custom," the young man interrupted, "to give one's own name first?"

"I dunno," Ranma said. "Is it?"

"It is!" the kendoist shouted. "My -"

"Okay, thanks."

The swordsman was turning somewhat red in the face. He spoke quickly. "The rising new star of the high school kendo world. My strength is beyond measure. I am the captain of the -"

"I thought you were gonna tell me your name?" Ranma interupted.

With a growl, the boy lunged, shouting "The Blue Thunder of Furinkan High - Tatewaki Kuno!" Lightning flashed as he attacked.

"Did he just call himself 'Blue Thunder'?" asked one of Nabiki's companions at the window.

"Have you heard that?"

"Nope," Nabiki said. "It's news to me."

"Last I heard, he was calling himself 'Shooting Star'."

"Maybe it should be 'Black and Blue Blunder'," the first girl suggested, watching as Ranma stepped inside of Kuno's reach and proceeded to work over the older student's belly with a succession of punches. "That new guy's pretty buff."

"He's a moron," Nabiki muttered.

"Well," Ranma noted as he walked into the school. "That was pathetic."

"Oh?" Akane asked. "What about your throat?"

Ranma rubbed the bruise, which Kuno had inflicted in passing as Ranma closed in. "Well, yeah. It's not much more than a graze. Just 'cause he's better than you doesn't make him all that good."

.oOo.

"You mean you fight Kuno everyday?" Ranma asked in a conversational voice.

"Shhh," Akane hissed as the teacher turned around to look for the source of the voice. She waited until the man had turned away again before nodding her head. "Yes. And somehow, I always win."

"That ain't right," Ranma said flatly. "He's better'n you are. Either he's got some major weak point you keep hitting, or he's holdin' back way more than he should."

"Why do you think that he's better than me?" Akane demanded. "If you fought me for real, you'd see that."

"If I fought you full contact, you'd never learn anythin'." Ranma said. "Except that I can kick your ass any time I want to. Kuno should do what I did - fight just enough ahead of ya that you have to push yerself. He's teachin' ya bad habits."

"Kuno isn't my teacher!" Akane snapped.

"No," the teacher said, irritably, looking over at her. "I am. Go stan-"

The exact nature of the reprimand that he was about to impose would forever be a mystery, albeit not one that would be delved into by many scholars over the years. For in mid-word he was cut off by someone slamming open the sliding door with such force that it hopped off it's runner and jammed open.

"Upperclassman Kuno?" Akane gasped.

"Ranma Saotome!" Kuno declared. "I won't allow it!"

"Allow what?" Ranma asked, freeing himself from the confines of desk and chair in readiness for a brisk bout of violence.

"This engagement of yours to Akane! I, Tatewaki Kuno, shall never, never -"

"What engagement?" Ranma's face was the very picture of innocence. "I thought you didn't want to get engaged, Akane? Didja change your mind?"

"WHAT!?" went up a chorus from the rest of the class around them. "Engagement!?" "You're kidding!" "Oh no!" "Is this for real, Akane?"

"And you said you despised men!" one girl said.

"It's not like that!" Akane protested.

Ranma scratched his head. "What the heck's everyone getting so excited about?"

Kuno gave an incoherent shout and attacked the red-shirted boy. Contrary to the basic tenets of narrativism, he dodged successfully, bounding up and off Kuno's head, to land in the corridor outside.

"Coward!" Kuno accused, spinning on his bare feet to face his opponent.

Ranma glanced around. A straight corridor, no real room to maneuver. "This is no place to fight," he declared. "Follow me."

"That I shall!" Kuno cried, giving chase as Ranma sprinted for the end of the corridor.

Ranma rounded a corner and spotted an open window. He jumped onto the sill, turning to his pursuer. "Let's take the fastest way down," he called, and leapt out.

"Very well!" Kuno followed with a jump that carried him through the window without even touching the frame. Due to Ranma's slight upward thrust, they were falling at more or less the same level, Ranma further from the building.

"You idiots!" Akane yelled, reaching the window. "This is the third floor!"

Kuno's face was a rictus of fear as he realised just how high they were. Ranma shook his head. I know she's gotten the idea that she's smarter than me from somewhere, but does she really think I can't count that high? He looked down and grimaced. Oh great. Water.

Water fountained into the air as the duelling pair cannonballed into the swimming pool.

.oOo.

"Ranma," Nabiki said with a serpentine smile. "I'd like to introduce you to someone that you haven't meet in a long while." She nodded towards the woman sitting at the table whose face was lightening up as the girl spoke. "This is Nodoka Saotome. Your mother."

Ranma looked at his mother and frowned. "Oh. Hello." He hesitated and then added, with patently false sincerity, "Pleased to meet you." Then he continued on his way across the room.

Nodoka's face frozen and she stared at Ranma with horrified fascination. "Ranma?"

He paused and hummed enquiringly. When she said nothing, he turned his head to look at her again. "Was there something?"

"I'm your mother!" she exclaimed. "Is that really all the greeting that you have for me?"

The boy considered that for a moment and then shrugged. "Eh. What would you suggest?"

"How about a hug?" Nabiki suggested quietly.

"I think that that would be rather unseemly," Ranma said in a disapproving voice. "We've hardly met and there's no reason to presume that sort of closeness."

Nodoka fainted.

"How could you?" Nabiki whispered, staring down at the fallen woman, then looking at Ranma, who was directing a somewhat perplexed expression at Nodoka. "How can you treat your own mother like that! You're a monster!"

Ranma froze... and then with a careful precision that was light years from his usual easy grace, stalked out of the room.

Kasumi chose that minute to walk through from the kitchen, just too late to see Ranma. "Oh my," she exclaimed, looking at Nodoka and at Nabiki, who was trembling with anger. "Whatever happened?"

.oOo.

Nodoka groaned and ran one hand across her face. What a terrible nightmare she'd had. However traumatic it might be for her dreams to feature the terrible consequences should Genma fail in their goals for Ranma, never before had even her worst nightmares suggested that Ranma might have turned out so...

Words failed her. Filial piety was the bedrock upon which families were built. Whatever western beliefs might have seeped into society of late, she knew that the only the strictest bonds could carry a family from generation to generation into the future. Just as parents were honoured for the sacrifices they made for their children, children demonstrated their virtue by submitting to those older and wiser than they, learning virtue in so doing.

The idea that Ranma could be so completely cut off from her as to not even acknowledge her in more than the perfunctory of fashions...

No. She shook her head. The idea was absurd. She might not have seen her son in ten years, but Genma would never have allowed her son to grow up without a healthy respect for her. The idea -

She opened her eyes to see Kasumi looking down at her with a concerned expression.

- was not a nightmare. Well, it was, but not in the sense of a phantasm conjured by her sleeping mind.

Tears began to roll down her cheeks.

"Mrs. Saotome?" Kasumi asked gently. "Are you -" She broke off. Not even she could go through the empty formula of asking a mother if she was 'alright' after her only child had rejected her so utterly.

"How?" Nodoka whispered.

"Ranma?" asked another voice.

Nodoka looked sideways to see Nabiki knelt on the opposite side from Kasumi. "How could he - ?" she asked, unable to even complete the question.

Nabiki grimaced. "I don't know." She looked torn, before grudgingly admitting: "I honestly don't think it's malice. He just... He probably didn't know you'd be hurt... doesn't understand why you are."

"He didn't know that he had a mother," Kasumi said gently.

Nodoka's eyes went wide. "But -"

"Kami!" Nabiki snorted. "The way he acted, he didn't even know or care what a mother was. He might as well have never heard the word before."


	2. DuckNin and Orange Arrow

Naruto paused. "Uh, you guys go on ahead. I've got to... uh... I'll catch up."

"What!?" Sakura demanded. "We have to catch those three Sand ninja. Where are you going?"

"I've got to... you know, go." Naruto emphasised.

The kunoichi rolled her eyes. "Oh for god's sake. I suppose the last thing we need is for you to wet yourself. Try to catch up when you're done."

Shino said nothing as they jumped onwards after the three Sound genin and Uchiha Sasuke. His silence said everything that needed to be said.

"I know," Sakura whined. "But Kakashi-sensei just says that the adversity is good for me when I complain about them."

.oOo.

"Where's the Uchiha?" Kankuro wondered, as the elder two of the Sand Siblings paused, Gaara hanging limp between them. "He was right behind us!"

An oddly shaped shuriken flickered through the air, parting several of the almost invisible strings connecting the puppet master to his puppet. Temari was surprised to see that the throwing weapon was shaped somewhat like a duck in flight. "Don't worry about Uchiha," a grim voice said from behind them and they jerked around to see that a new ninja was looking down at them from a low branch.

The angle made it hard to see what he looked like - the cape around his shoulders and the long peak over his face didn't help. "Worry yourselves about me."

"Deal with this nutcase," Temari ordered, taking Gaara's full weight and heading further into the woods as Kankuro loosed Karasu.

"Deal with me?" the ninja asked, his voice contemptuous. "Who the hell do you think you're dealing with?" One fist crashed against Kankuro's face and he half spun, crashing back against a tree.

Damn, but he's fast, the puppeteer thought. Let's see him deal with this though. A dozen poisoned darts ripped out of his costume, perforating the air where the caped ninja had been standing, betraying that 'Kankuro' was not the ninja but the puppet. Failing to strike the target, who stepped out of the Sand ninja's line of sight and was gone before Kankuro could shift the wrappings enough to see for himself.

"Where are you!" Kankuro shouted. "Coward!"

His reply was two more duckarangs carving through more strings. It would be hard to control the puppet now. Not impossible, there was redundancy built into the design...

.oOo.

"Who could have done this?" Sakura asked as she stared at Kankuro.

The Sand puppeteer was spreadeagled between two trees by the strings of his own puppet that lay, wrecked to the point that she doubted it could ever be repaired, on the ground in easy view of the boy.

Shikamaru frowned and pointed at where the strings around Kankuro's wrists were pinned to branches above his head by familiar looking kunai.

Sakura dropped to the ground to examine the kunai pinning the ankle strings to exposed roots. "They're his!" she gasped, running one finger across the duckarang's distinctive curves before darting on past Kankuro, Shikamaru following patiently behind her.

"You could at least have let me down," Kankuro mumbled half-heartedly.

.oOo.

"Okay..." Shikamaru drawled as he looked at the force of Sound ninja. "Something tells me that you guys aren't going to be too troublesome."

The nearest of the Sound ninja, tied securely to a tree with long cords groaned around the apple (pierced by an arrow) that had been jammed into his mouth. He really didn't care much at this point. He figured he'd gotten off lightly compared to the ninja who'd been pounded from every conceivable direction by arrows with padding wrapped around heavy weights.

The arrow that had exploded into a net to catch two of the other ninja might seem less dangerous on the face of it - any ninja who couldn't get out of a simple net didn't deserve the name. Unfortunately, this net was practically coated with itching powder and as a result of their struggles to deal with that, the two were now inextricably entangled... and quite unable to deal with the itching.

That left the goop that had covered one unlucky ninja's face - and was apparently laced with some sort of hallucinogenic; the arrow that had apparently been a sealed live chicken (which didn't sound too bad until you saw it in action); the network of wires linked to more raiton tags than he'd ever seen in his life...

The list went on and on. He really would appreciate a change of subject matter for his thoughts. Although jamming those arrows up every orifice of that damned archer would probably make him feel better.

Shikamaru picked up one of the arrows that had buried itself in the ground and examined it. Yep, flashbang. And from the smell, there had been some smokescreens laid here. "Let's play word association," he said to the ninja. "First word is: orange."

The Sound ninja groaned again.

.oOo.

Two arrows whipped past Temari and her burden. "Missed!" she shouted triumphantly.

The explosives in the arrowheads detonated in contact with the trees ahead of her, shattering the trunks low down and dropping several tonnes of wood into Temari's path. The sheer sound of the explosions hammered at her ears and had almost as much of a contribution to her halt.

"I don't ever miss, lady," the orange clad maniac with the bow called down to her.

Temari dumped Gaara's deadweight - she didn't need anything slowing her down right now - and whipped out her battlefan. "Then we have something in common," she said, and unleashed the wind to deflect another arrow. "Does everyone in this loser village rely on second-rate weapons?" she asked. "I'm not complaining, but it's not like any of you have actually been a challenge so far."

"Hey, Duck-boy," the Orange Arrow shouted enthusiastically. "Let's get dangerous."

Duck-Nin shook his head. "You're not as funny as you think that you are."

"We need to wake him up," Duck-nin advised, not even out of breath it would seem. Then again, it had been the Orange Arrow who was doing all the running around.

"Okay, how do we do that?" the ninja archer asked. "He's up to his ass in giant tanuki."

Duck-nin reached into his utility belt and produced a small vial. "Smelling salts," he said coolly. "Refit one of your arrows -"

"Hey, do I tell you how to run around with a stick up your butt?" the Orange Arrow demanded, snatching the vial. "Don't try to tell me how to do my own schtick, you freak."

Duck-nin glared at him. "I'll keep him busy."

.oOo.

Sakura's jaw dropped as she and Shino eyed the devestation. According to the maps she'd studied at the Academy, there were no clearings of this size in this part of the forest. At a guess, those maps would now need to be updated to account for today's devestation

"Hey, what happened to Gaara?" Naruto asked as he arrived suddenly. "Did you do that to him Sakura?"

"Don't be an idiot," she snapped back. "We just got here." She picked up an arrow. "See if you can look underneath the underneath for once, Naruto. Or just see what's in front of you. Who do you think would scatter arrows everywhere like this?"

"That jerk Orange Arrow?" Naruto asked innocently. "Do you think he got squashed? Ouch! What did you do that for, Sakura?"

"Did I miss the fight?" asked Sasuke, dropping from the trees. "I lost the trail a way back, took me a while to figure out where I was."

Shino shook his head and picked up a duckarang, offering it to Sakura. The kunoichi looked at it, flipped it in her hand and then threw it (fairly slowly) at Sasuke, who fell over backwards as his efforts to keep from being perforated overbalanced him. The duck-shaped kunai whistled over his head and embedded itself in a tree trunk.

"DuckNin and Orange Arrow beat Gaara!" she wailed. "That's so amazing! I wish I'd seen it, it must have been really cool."

Sasuke looked at the batarang and tried to pull it out of the tree. When he failed he turned back to look at Sakura with an impressed look on his face. "You're pretty good with these, Sakura. Are you sure you aren't secretly Duck-Nin?"

"Duh," Naruto pointed out. "Duck-Nin's a guy. You'd know if you were ever around when he showed up." His eyes narrowed suspiciously. Sasuke never was around when Duck-Nin appeared... could that mean... He compared his mental image of Duck-Nin: dark, brooding, badass with a stick up his butt, with the playboy Uchiha. Nah.

Sasuke relaxed slightly as he saw what was almost suspcion in Naruto's eyes fade away. Not that it was likely that Naruto would deduce his secret identity - hah, more likely that Naruto was secretly the Orange Arrow. Although... had he ever seen them together? Well, yes, but the Orange Arrow was a master of Kage Bunshin so he could have faked it.

Naruto picked up an arrow and threw it, dartlike, in the direction of the fallen Gaara. It spiraled uselessly and fell towards the floor, eliciting a pout from the blond.

The last loyal Uchiha shook his head slightly. There was such a thing as being too paranoid.


	3. Kasumi's House

"Kasumi, isn't this exactly what we ate for dinner yesterday?" an eight-year old Nabiki asked.

"No Nabiki, you ate all of that. This is the same receipe however."

"Why do we always eat the same things everyday? Mommy never made us do that?"

"If you want to take over the cooking, Nabiki, you can do so any time," the oldest Tendo daughter advised, taking a bite out of the simple meal that she'd prepared. "Otherwise you're going to eat what I can cook. Your call."

Nabiki's eyes teared up.

.oOo.

Tears poured down Soun's cheeks. His beloved wife was dead. Wah!

His daughters didn't have a mother any more. Wah!

Everyone in the market was looking at him funny. Wah!

Thwack!

Kasumi just hit him with a riding crop. OW!

"Stop maundering," the eleven year old girl ordered, not even looking up from the text book she was reading.

The shopping bags were really heavy. Wah!

.oOo.

"Why can't you be like a normal big sister?" nine-year old Akane asked Kasumi.

"Normal big sisters don't have to bully their families to do their chores," Kasumi explained from the stool she was standing on to hang the laundry from the clothesline. "Now go sweep the dojo."

"I hate you!" Akane shot back over her shoulder. "Mommy never made me sweep the dojo!"

Kasumi's face twitched. "Mommy is dead, Akane. Get used to it."

.oOo.

Nabiki stared at the small portion on her plate. "Kasumi? Why do I only get half as much as Akane?"

"Remember how I said that if you wanted that dress then I couldn't buy as much food as usual?"

The eleven year old's eyes went wide. "But, but everyone else has normal portions."

"We don't have a new dress," Kasumi explained. "On half-portions it'll take about a week for the savings on your food to pay for the dress."

"You can have some of my food," Akane offered, moving some across to Nabiki's plate while glaring at their older sister.

Kasumi shrugged. "It's your food Akane," she said. "If you want to give some to Nabiki then that's up to you. I'm not going to though."

.oOo.

Soun stared blankly at Kasumi's report card. All the grades were good. The notes by the teachers were not.

"Kasumi?" he asked cautiously. "What's this about fighting at school?"

His oldest daughter didn't look up from where she was washing the dishes. "Certain of my classmates think they can say nasty things about me because I don't hang around the shopping district and pick up boys like a trollop. So I slapped them around a bit to remind them of their manners."

"Y-you really shouldn't say things like that," he ventured a suggestion.

"I told you to dry the dishes, not make conversation," she snorted.

Soun lowered his head and obeyed.

.oOo.

"My knee hurts," Akane complained.

"That's what happens when you scrape it on gravel," Kasumi observed, letting the antiseptic soak into the cloth that she was going to use. "Now hold still, this is going to hurt even more." She wiped at the scrape and Akane shrieked as the anti-septic stung her.

"You're mean, Kasumi!" she declared. "I wanna go see Doctor Tofu. He's nice."

"Doctors cost money," Kasumi told her. "If I take that much money out of the food budget you'll probably be ill with how small the portions would be." She held up the wipe. "Now either I clean your knee up or you do."

Akane sniffed and then accepted the cloth and dabbed at the scrape while Kasumi readied a bandage.

.oOo.

"Being your sister sucks," Nabiki complained. "Everyone thinks I'm in a gang or something. Do I have to go to the same High School as you next year?"

Kasumi shrugged. "If you go to the same school then you can wear my old uniforms which saves money. It's also the nearest school so you don't have so far to go in the morning."

"How much do school uniforms cost?" Nabiki asked. "I've got some money saved up."

Kasumi quoted a figure and Nabiki's head slumped. "Great, another three years of having the reputation of 'Kasumi Tendo's sister'."

"I feel so loved," Kasumi noted and went back to sewing the seam of one of Akane's dogi back together.

.oOo.

"You don't have to do this, Kasumi," Soun protested.

"Your father is correct, Miss Tendo," the doctor advised. "I strongly recommend that you go to hospital. It's extremely likely that you've fractured your shin bone. There cannot be any possibility of your continuing in the tournament."

"Unfortunately," Kasumi explained. "Our family medical insurance will not pay for such an expense. And with the reputation of the family dojo at stake, I cannot withdraw from this tournament."

.oOo.

Akane groaned as she picked herself up off the floor. Kasumi had already turned away and was limping back to where she'd left her walking stick, glad that her younger sister couldn't see her face as it betrayed the pain that sparring had caused her leg.

"Where are you going?" Akane gasped, climbing to her feet. "I can keep going."

"Since you're feeling so energetic," Kasumi said, leaning slightly on her walking stick, "Show me the third variation of the ninth kata. Half speed."

"But -"

Kasumi hit the floor with her stick. "Half speed," she repeated herself, without an ounce of emotion visible on her face.

The fifteen year old sighed and adopted the correct stance.

"Begin."

.oOo.

"Your problem isn't so terrible after all," Soun beamed, patting Ranma paternally on her shoulder and then pointed at the shorter haired of the two girls. "My daughter Nabiki. Seventeen. And Akane. Sixteen," he continued, indicating the youngest of Tendo girls. "And Kasumi will be here soon. She's nineteen. Pick the one you want. She's your fiancee."

"Oh, he'll want Kasumi," Nabiki said instantly. "Everyone knows that she's the pretty one."

"Definitely," Akane added, a smug smile on her face. "And she's the real martial artist in the family so they'll have that in common."

The door slid open and Kasumi stepped in. Ranma blinked at her. Somehow the concept of the as yet unseen older sister being pretty and a martial artist didn't seem to add up to what he was seeing. Kasumi was taller than he was and like Akane, her long hair was tied back in a high pony-tail. Unlike Akane, she was wearing jeans and heavy boots that looked like they would slow her down in a fight. In fact, with those boots and the plain shirt she was wearing under her raincoat she looked more like a construction worker than a martial artist.

The fact that she was leaning lightly on a walking stick and had a six-pack of beer in the other hand didn't help with the impression that she was making.

Kasumi was looking around the room herself and sighed, leaning her stick against the wall before peeling a can off from the six pack and cracking it open. "Another night of the Tendo family's hijinks," she sighed and took a swig. "Cheers."

"Kasumi!" Akane protested. "How can you drink that stuff? And when we have guests!"

"Father's halfway through a bottle of sake, Akane," Kasumi pointed out. "Do you want some?" she added, offering the open can to Ranma.

"Uh, no thanks."

"Let me know if you change your mind," she said unabashed. "They drive me to drink regularly." Walking past them she headed for the stairs.

"Kasumi."

Kasumi paused at the foot of the stairs and glanced back at Soun. "You have my attention."

"Meet your new fiance, Ranma."

"Right, nice to meet you Ra-" She paused and examined the can of beer carefully. "You know it doesn't look like someone tampered with this but it sounded like you just said something rather strange, father. Repeat yourself. Please."

"R-ranma is your fiance," Sound explained a little uneasily.

Kasumi nodded thoughtfully and then looked at Ranma. "No offense to you, Ranma - I've barely met you and thus far you seem like a nice enough young man - but this is the first that I've heard of this and I really haven't had any plans to marry so WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU BABBLING ABOUT FATHER!"

.oOo.

Half an hour later, Ranma was soaking in the furo.

I guess I'm engaged to her, he thought. Why did the other girls say that I would want her? She's not as cute as Akane and what sort of martial artist needs a cane?

"So who are you?"

"Huh!?" the boy exclaimed, turning suddenly, a wave of water sloshing across the furo in response to his movement. Through the translucent panels of the door he saw a tall shape with long hair. The voice wasn't deep enough to be Soun and the shape was too tall for Akane, so it had to be his...

His new fiancee.

"Who are you, Ranma Saotome?" she repeated and he could see her fingertips pressing against the panel. "It would seem that we are to be man and wife. Who are you?"

"You know who I am!" he protested.

"Are you just a name?" Kasumi asked, her voice slightly mocking. "Is being my husband all that you will ever be? That's all I know of you, fiance. Is there more? Do you have dreams? People who are precious to you? Secrets that you would never share with your father?"


	4. The Apollo Inheritance

A hatch opened and steam rose from the green liquid that had been confined within it. A moment later the steam was followed by a cat, who struggled over the side of the tank he had been contained in and fell to the floor of the medical bay. "Ow..." he observed, lying limply on the floor, his fur still matted with the healing fluid. "Doc...?"

There was a chime from the ceiling and a serious voice spoke from the ceiling. "Lieutenant Apollo," greeted the ship's computer. "Please report to the drive room for debriefing."

The cat - a rather battered looking tomcat with gingery fur under the green goop and one empty eyesocket - gave the ceiling a sceptical look. "I just got out of the meditank," he spat. "What do you mean, report to the drive room? Where's the doc'?"

"The Orichalcum is currently without medical staff," the computer informed him emotionlessly. "Your presence is required in the drive room as an Alpha-One Command priority."

Apollo's one eye went wide and his hackles rose. "Alpha-One... Command?" he repeated in a horrified voice. "Impossible..." Nonetheless, he rose to his feet and began to stumble across the medical bay towards the door, which slid open as he approached.

The door led to a corridor, which in turn led to one of the ship's turbolift shafts. Apollo staggered inside and lay, gasping on the floor. His injuries, and the extended recovery time had sapped his endurance more than he would have believed possible, leaving him weaker than a kitten. "Drive Room," he ordered the turbolift and it set off with the familiar hum of electromagnetics.

"What's going on?" he asked the computer once his breathing had returned to normal. "Where is everyone?"

"They're dead, Lieutenant Apollo."

"What? Who is?"

"Everyone is dead, Lieutenant Apollo," the computer expanded.

"Everyone? What the hell? The Orichalcum has a crew of over ninety-thousand!"

"The current complement of the Orichalcum is one."

"One? Besides me?"

"One, including you, Lieutenant Apollo."

"Are you telling me that I'm the only person alive on the entire ship?"

"That is correct, Lieutenant Apollo," the computer confirmed as the turbolift reached it's destination and the doors opened to allow the cat access to the lobby of the drive room.

He crossed the divide on the deck and looked up at the massively reinforced hatch leading into the drive room, the holy of holy that could be accessed only by command personel. "You realise that I'm not allowed to go in there, don't you?"

"An Alpha-One Command priority overrides those restrictions," the computer said and the hatch opened. Behind it was another hatch, then third. Each was made up of four feet of battlesteel - the same material that made up the core of the ship's multi-resistant hull - and Apollo trod carefully along the four yard passage between them, watching them carefully in case they were about to close upon him. Not that he would be able to react in time if they did... the portals were designed to close as close to instantly as the best engineers available could arrange, sealing off the drive room from any external threat.

"Okay, I'm here," Apollo said, standing just inside the doors and looking at the empty chamber. It was circular, with twelve workstations around the perimeter, each partially sunk into the floor. An oval dais occupied about half of the space between workstations and in it's centre was the throne-like seat reserved for the ship's commanding officer. Royal regulation limited command of a Mithril-class SuperDreadnought such as the Orichalcum to officers of not less than fifty years of service and rank not less than Lieutenant-Admiral. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Take your seat," said the computer, for the first time taking a visible form, as a tiny holographic simulacram of Queen Serenity standing on the armrest of the command chair. "And assume command."

.oOo,

"So let me get this straight," Apollo said half an hour later. "While the Orichalcum was docked for repairs, there was an attack on the Moon Kingdom by some sort of daemonic army that overwhelmed the palace defenses and crippled the planetary life support. All contact with the palace was lost... and then everyone on the entire Moon (except me) vanished due to a major working of the Imperium Silver Crystal, purpose and effect unknown."

"Your summation is correct," the computer agreed.

"There's no contact from the rest of the fleet?"

"All vessels and bases have been queried and no responses have been received."

"Civilian contacts?"

"Lifesigns have been detected on the Earth. No transmissions have been detected however, from anywhere in the solar system."

"Feck," Apollo muttered. He was curled up in the seat of the command chair, licking away the healing fluid from his fur. "So why the Alpha-One Command priority? There's no one to command."

"General Order Seven dictates than in the absence of the specified civilian command, the senior military officer available is to assume temporary civilian authority and execute such emaergency measures are required. You are the sole remaining member of the Orichalcum's chain of command and by default the senior military officer on the Moon."

Apollo blinked at that declaration, but did not manage to voice a protest before the computer continued inexorably. "As of your return to health, you are automatically Commanding Officer of the Royal Moon Navy Ship Orichalcum, Senior Naval Officer of the Royal Moon Naval Base Zero-One and Regent of the Moon Kingdom."

The somewhat overwhelmed feline gave voice to a somewhat plainitive noise that could best be expressed as "gw?" The computer, its explanation now complete, waited for the new Commanding Officer's next orders.

There was a low rumble from Apollo's belly and he used one paw to rub at his eyes. "Is there any immediate actual crisis that I need to deal with in the next, say, twelve hours?"

The computer considered that. "No," it confirmed.

"Right..." Apollo muttered, wondering why it had been so important to rush him here in that case. Then he shook his head. With an Alpha-One priority, such minor details as food and non-critical medical demands would not be considered relevant. "In that case, I need something to eat, someplace to wash and someplace to sleep, in that order."

The computer hummed happily. "A meal will be provided in the Commanding Officer's quarters. Bathing and sleeping facilties are available there." A small mote of golden light floated in front of the chair and started to slowly move towards the doors. "Please follow the guide light."

Apollo shook his head disbelievingly and obeyed.

.oOo,

Although the quarters of the Commanding Admiral were designed for a human rather than for a mooncat, Apollo had no complaints. The food, provided by the automatic systems, was a cut or two above that usually enjoyed by a mere Lieutenant. The bath washed away the remaining gunk from his fur and the towels were fresh, warm and pleasently scented.

The only thing that even slightly spoiled his sleep as he curled up in the precise centre of the bed was the vague expectation that he would wake up to discover a furious Lieutenant-Admiral wanting to know what had led to a Mau winding up in her bed.

This did not in fact happen, and he awoke, still undisturbed, with no more pressing crisis other than a rumbling stomach. After breaking his fast he returned to the drive room to try to work out what he should do next - assuming that he could actually accomplish anything at all.

There was certainly a lot to be done, he realised. Although the Orichalcum had only been peripherially involved in the battles, its previous damage had not been repaired - only the barest beginnings had been made in clearing away the damaged components. Now, if this work was to be done, it would have to be done without the support of the large dockyards of Naval Base Zero-One. The task would be herculean - Mithril-class superdreadnoughts were the largest vessels in the Royal Moon Navy, a staggering seventeen kilometers long - and only the enormous degree of automation would render it possible at all.

The Royal Moon Navy maintained a small fleet of Mobile Fabricators, highly automated factory-ships that, given resources and time, could construct virtually any vessel in the fleet's inventory, including themselves. The Orichalcum contained four factories of equivalent capability. All four were damaged to some extent, but by stripping parts from three of them, the least damaged could be restored to operation and from there, with the guidance of the Orichalcum's core computer, rebuild the rest of the ship. However, given the existing damage, the repairs would demand most of the ship's power and all of its maintenance robots.

"How long would that take?" Apollo asked thoughtfully.

"Assuming that resources are available from the dockyard's stockpiles, which would seem probable, not less than eight years," the computer replied.

Apollo winced. "Great. And we can just about guarentee that someone else out there will come to see what's happened to the Moon Kingdom before then. We'd be annexed within a year, or worse, they'd start fighting over our remaining resources."

The computer remained silent. Political and diplomatic theory were not within it's area of expertise.

"Great," Apollo said after a minute. "I guess I'll have to figure out how to get more of the fleet back online. Is Fleet HQ still around?"

"Fleet HQ was overrun by the second wave of invaders," the computer said, and then, anticipating the question. "Secondary command posts survive however. The nearest is at Castle Magellan, the home of Sailor Venus."

Apollo nodded. "Right then. I'll need a skiff to make it there as fast as possible. From there I can recall any vessels still operating under automatic control. But before I go I'd better get the maintenance robots started on rebuilding our factory units."

.oOo,

If the blasted ruins of the Moon Kingdom's capital were mournful, the empty corridors of Castle Magellan were eerie. Apollo made himself known to the command computers and after almost an hour of deliberation, the three massive computers verified his identity and the authority invested in him due to the emergency. After jumping from the job of a lieutenant to that of a lieutenant admiral, Apollo wouldn't have thought that taking on the role of a Fleet Marshal to be such a shock to him. He was wrong.

In fairness, there wasn't exactly a Fleet Marshal's command left of the Royal Moon Navy. The bulk of the fleet had been attacked over Venus by the same forces that had devestated the surface of the world but failed to penetrate the defenses of Castle Magellan. The ships had been gutted by vicious fighting aboard them and only a handful of vessels responded to Apollo's signals. Scattered detachments around the system responded however. Each had been emptied however, in the same way that the Orichalcum had.

In total, his 'fleet' consisted of a couple of dozen cruisers, three battlecruisers and a single Mobile Fabricator. The latter was invaluable of course and Apollo set it to bringing the operational vessels up to their full capability as soon as possible. A plan was beginning to take shape in his mind.

He returned to the Orichalcum and spent several days observing matters on Earth through long range sensors.

Whatever had struck at the Moon Kingdom had been almost as devestating for the Earth. There had been no planetary life support to be lost but massive loss of life had taken place and hundreds of cities had been levelled by magics of mass destruction, with a domino effect upon the infrastructure. What was left of the great world spanning civilisation had splintered over the following months into dozens of successor states squabbling over the remnants and as often as not destroying them in the process. Not that it made a difference, for somehow the magisphere had been damaged, and much of the equipment used by the Moon Kingdom's earthbound cousins had depended upon it to function. It would be a millenium at least before it would be possible to rebuild using those tools.

The irony was a bitter one. The Moon and the other planets had a wealth of tools and infrastructure but lacked population or the ecosphere to support them. The Earth had people and a viable ecology, but was inimical to the tools and infrastructure remaining to it. Apollo was honestly wary about even sending a ship down, wisely as it happened, for when a cruiser descended under remote control it suffered a massive system failure and crashed (into a depopulated region of the southern hemisphere).

"If there's going to be any rebuilding it will have to be from the Protectorates," he decided. "It's almost certain that they'll be under threat from our neighbours once they realise we've dropped out of contact. I think it's going to be necessary to renegotiate our treaties with them."

He grimaced when the computer presented him with the text of just one of those treaties. Several hundred pages that he would have to decipher before he could even begin to make a credible attempt at rearranging those treaties. "Just great. I'm gonna need a dictionary just to figure out what all this crap means."

.oOo,

Ten Thousand Years Later

Apollo blinked lazily as the stasis field fell away. There was grey in his fur these days and the patch over his empty eye was emblazoned with the arms of the Moon Kingdom. Despite spending most of each year in stasis, awoken only for emergencies, he had been active for over one hundred and twenty years by his personal chronology. Mau lived longer than humans, but not _that_ much longer without serious magical intervention.

The stasis chamber was in the heart of the Orichalcum, itself hovering in the centre of the fleet that he had built up over the long, lonely years. Thirty-five more superdreadnoughts formed the immediate escort and they were surrounded by more than two hundred dreadnoughts and more than twelve hundred each of battleships, battlecruisers and cruisers. Lesser vessels patrolled the Protectorate worlds and their colonies, somewhat expanded over the years, reporting back to him here and to Castle Magellan where an identical fleet hid within the disguising fog of the Venusian atmosphere. Not one other living being existed within either fleet, and Apollo had begun to wonder, over the years, if it might be wise to arrange a successor.

"What's the situation?" he asked the computer (now much augmented). "Don't tell me it's another border violation by the Kzinti. I would have thought that that they'd gotten the idea by now."

"Castle Magellan reports possible activity on Earth."

Apollo frowned and scratched behind his ear. "On Earth? Huh. Show me the latest profile on them."

Orichalcum obediently began to display the results of dozens of long-range scans over the last decade. Mankind had been of little concern to the Mau Regent of the Moon Kingdom for eons, but of late they seemed to have devised means to circumvent the limits of the still recovering magisphere. Indeed, they had accomplished manned flight almost a century before, prompting him to order the removal of all active facilities from the Moon. There would be plenty for them to find there, if they ever discovered the remaining ruins of the Moon Kingdom, but he didn't see any point in letting them get access to one of his bases until he had had time to explain matters to them.

"The hell?" he asked, flagging up one report based on an intercepted televideo transmission from an eastern archepelago. "How long have Sailor Senshi been running around? And why wasn't I told?"

"Two lunar cycles. The report was judged to be fictious on evaluation," the Orichalcum answered, a little defensively. It was possibly the oldest semi-autonomous system in operation and Apollo occasionally wondered if it's pretense of sentient behavior might be more than an act by now. "It was flagged for routine checking however, which has determined a possibility of active use of a Silver Millenium computer system of military grade."

Apollo grimaced. "Military grade? Any chance of penetration of our security?"

"Unlikely," Orichalcum replied. "All codes have been updated routinely since the discovery and a full audit has detected no contact with our own systems. It is possible that there may be a connection operating with the Palace mainframes but this has been impossible to verify."

"And can we penetrate their system?" Apollo asked. He knew that neither the Orichalcum nor Castle Magellan would attempt the feat without his authority or a direct attack, but that wouldn't keep them from evaluating the possibilities.

"Prohibited," the computer told him flatly. "The system is Senshi-grade and hardwired instructions forbid any attempt to breech security of that classification using military systems."

"Senshi-grade military hardware?" Apollo asked in surprise. "How the devil did that wind up on Earth of all places?"

"Unknown."

"Well, notify the Palace of all information," he ordered after a moment. "You never know, it might prompt some action. And..." He hesitated. "Computer, can we insert a message onto the system without violating the instructions for Senshi equipment?"

.oOo,

Mizuno Ami looked at the Mercury computer in surprise. "Luna?" she asked. "The Mercury Computer says that a video file has been transmitted to it. Was that you?"

The mooncat frowned. "I didn't send you anything," she said. "Perhaps it's from Control. It's unlikely to be dangerous though. What does it say?"

"I haven't checked yet," Ami admitted. She brought up the file and hit play.

The face that looked out of the screen at her was that of a cat, marked with the same cresent moon as Luna. However, this cat was a grizzled ginger-and-black tomcat and one eye, incongrously, was covered by a black eyepatch that carried the same crescent moon, surrounded by a circle of symbols Ami could not make out at first glance, although she made a mental note to have the computer magnify and clarify the images later.

"Greetings," the cat said, his voice authoritive but also tinged with curiousity. "I do not know who is receving this message, but I would be interested in conversing with you. I am Senior Fleet Marshal Apollo of the Royal Moon Navy, Regent of the Moon Kingdom and Governor-General of the Moon Kingdom's Protectorates. Hail Serenity!"

"If you wish to know more, please reply through the same channel that I despatched this message. If not, then I shall assume that you do not reciprocate my interest and shall respect your wish for privacy."

Without further salutation, the message ended.

.oOo,

"Senior Fleet Marshal?" Usagi asked. "Sounds like this guy's gone off his rocker, Ami."

"It was a genuine rank in the Moon Kingdom, Usagi," Luna advised her charge, "although no one had actually held the rank in almost a thousand years - in peacetime the Royal Moon Navy simply didn't need more than a single Fleet Marshal."

"There were some Mau in the Navy," Artemis allowed. "I don't recall this one, but the most senior Mau officer at the time the Kingdom fell was only a Lieutenant-Commander..."

"Perhaps his memory's been damaged as well?" Makoto suggested. "You don't remember everything Artemis, he could just be confused. What's the harm in talking to him?"

Luna sighed. "Makoto, for whatever reason, he's declared himself Regent and Governor-General, which are civil posts. For a military officer to usurp those posts is treason, which means he's either totally insane or... no, I can't even think of an alternative."

"How much of a problem would it be if he is crazy?" asked Rei. "I mean, what if he does have a spaceship?"

"The Royal Moon Navy was quite extensive," admitted Artemis. "But I'm pretty sure that it was almost wiped out during the fall of the Moon Kingdom. Still, if he did get a ship working then there could be a problem. A single cruiser could do a fair amount of damage and I don't think that anyone in the current space programmes could stop one."

Usagi blinked. "That sounds nasty. Why'd the Moon Kingdom have ships like that?"

"Mostly to defend neighbouring star systems from pirates and aggressive empires," Luna explained. "Protectorate status was granted to several of them, but the Senshi obviously couldn't be there and here at the same time, so a fleet was built to defend them. I think we'd better be very careful talking to this Apollo - Ami, do you think you could contact the Palace computers? They might have some idea what his 'fleet' is like."

"I think so," Ami said and started tapping at the controls of the Mercury Computer.

Rei frowned. "Luna, if he really does have a ship, maybe more than one ship, just how much trouble could he cause? I don't think you've ever really mentioned the fleet before."

"I don't know," admitted Luna. "I studied politics, Artemis is the military expert."

The white cat looked pained. "Well... if he were suicidally inclined, he could crash his ship into the Earth. That would qualify as a weapon of mass destruction, I think. More conventionally, a cruiser's armament would be a dozen or so Lesser Orb Launchers. I don't think Earth's military has anything comparable to them, but they fire spells equivalent to medium power Senshi attacks. Not very precise, but they have secondary launchers for that sort of thing and they can fire quite a range of Orb types."


	5. Former Known As Potter

The house was a wizard's. Albus Dumbledore could have guessed that merely by looking at it, even without the subtle wards that he had detected as he walked up the path from the street. Muggles, in his experience, liked their houses to be neat and orderly, all of one design. This house was a hodgepodge of different architectural styles ranging from a somewhat celtic style tower jammed at one end of a tudor timber-and-plaster wing to the iron and glass conservatory sat on top of a what appeared to be a small hill, except for the windows and the front door - which was green and perfectly round.

It was, in a word, eccentric.

It was also quite new, he suspected. It would seem that the young man that he sought had been hard at work for the last few weeks. The path led directly to the green door and he reached out and applied the doorknocker to it's purpose.

After a moment there was a shuffling noise from behind the door and it swung upon to reveal a young man, still in his teens from all appearances, with tousled raven-dark hair and green eyes. He blinked. "Ah... oh, Headmaster. I wasn't expecting you." He glanced back into the house. "Wasn't expecting visitors at all, actually."

Dumbledore chuckled. "Quite an impressive building project that you have here."

Harry's face coloured. "Thank you. Please," he said, holding the door wider. "Come in. Would you like some tea?"

"That would be very nice," agreed Dumbledore, walking in. The hallway inside was quite wide, more of a round tunnel with a flattened floor than a conventional passageway and very bare, probably because Harry was not done moving in yet. The door to the left led into the kitchen, which was fully furnished although boxes of crockery were stacked in one corner, waiting to be unpacked. Harry ushered him through the open door at the other side of the kitchen into a room that for the moment housed only a single folding table and three mismatched chairs.

"So how are matters at Hogwarts?" Harry asked from the kitchen as he filled the kettle from the sink.

"Oh, very well," Dumbledore told him, pulling one of the chairs away from the table to sit down. "The usual hijinks of course, but nothing so pressing that I can't take a few hours away from my office."

"It must be so peaceful without the Weasley twins there," Harry noted absently.

"More than I would like their imitators to realise," confirmed the headmaster. "Although there was something of a fuss over the names on their diplomas - it seems that they had legally changed their names to Gred and Forge. Their mother was... vocal about her unhappiness."

"For the sake of my ears," Harry said, passing the door to fetch the teapot and two cups from the boxes, "I'm glad I didn't have to hear it."

Dumbledore steepled his fingers. "Since you've brought that up, Harry," he said, as if the question had not been the reason for his presence here the whole time, "Why is it that you elected not to return to Hogwarts for your final year?"

Harry set down the tea pot next to the kettle a little harder than was strictly necessary and walked back to the door so that he could see the headmaster. "You don't know?"

"I rather gather that there was some sort of falling out with your family," Dumbledore admitted. "I am not sure, precisely, of how the one led to the other."

Harry met Dumbledore's eyes evenly and the older wizard had to restrain the impulse to pluck the information out of the younger's thoughts. It would probably succeed but it would almost certainly be noticed and the distrust it would spark would be entirely counterproductive.

"Well, to give you the abridged version," Harry advised him, "I was disinherited and disowned. And my parents made it perfectly clear that with that being the case they weren't going to front another year's tuition at Hogwarts for me."

Dumbledore stared in unabashed dismay at Harry. "James and Lily said that?"

Harry snorted. "I was advised that I should be grateful that they did not make my 'shameful situation' public."

"But why?" Dumbledore asked him. "Why expel you from your whole family?"

"Well," Harry told him in a tightly controlled voice. "I was disinherited because that clears the way for the all important Boy-Who-Lived to become the heir primus of the Potter Family. In all fairness, that does include several fairly useful magical protections that I don't begrudge him in the least. I was disowned because I am a parselmouth, was sorted in Slytherin and destined to become a dark wizard who will reflect poorly enough on the Potter family as it is without the added burden for them of my sharing their name."

Dumbledore slumped slightly in his chair. "Oh dear. What were they thinking?"

"I'm really not sure," Harry said and went back into the kitchen as the kettle began to whistle. "To be honest, I was rather hoping not to have any visitors until I'd calmed down a little."

"I'm not sure I'll live that long, Harry," Dumbledore said a trifle wryly. "Not that I can blame you for your anger. In fact, I regret to say that I may in fact be adding to your wrathful feelings today."

"Should I put some hemlock in your tea now or wait until I can find something more painful."

"Harry, you - not your brother - are the Boy-Who-Lived."

"What!" There was the sound of a tea cup hitting the stone floor of the kitchen. "Bugger. Repairo."

"So what led you to this rather startling conclusion?" Harry asked walking back into the room and offering the tea somewhat roughly to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore sipped carefully on the tea, pondering how would be best to phrase this. "I have always known, Harry. It was evident from the magical traces in your bedroom sixteen years ago that Voldemort never went near your brother."

Harry's fists clenched. "Why?" he demanded. The rest of the question was obvious. Why had Albus Dumbledore lied?

"Allow me to answer your question with another, Harry. Do you believe that your brother can defeat Voldemort?"

Harry snorted. "Fat chance."

"And why would you say that that is so?"

"Because..." Harry hesitated. "Ah. Because he has always had everything handed to him on a platter he has never really had to work for anything. Because he's arrogant, coddled and makes Draco Malfoy look like Oliver Twist. And if he was your real hope... well, from what you say, if my parents had raised me in that manner, then... so much for your hopes."

"I apologise for your difficult childhood," Dumbledore said softly. "I knew that it would be difficult, although I must confess that James and Lily surpassed my worst imaginings in the degree to which they spoiled your brother and neglected you. However, you have born up amazingly well. Magnificently, one might say. Much as I regret your suffering, it has forged you into wizard of great skill and power."

"A great weapon," Harry said flatly.

Dumbledore hesitated.

"A weapon," repeated Harry. "A weapon to be wielded. A sword, after all, must be beaten repeatedly with a hammer during its making, something that iron ore would doubtless resent if it could."

"But the result, Harry, is perhaps the most revered of weapons."

.oOo.

"Albus!" Minerva gasped. "What happened to you."

Dumbledore straightened his somewhat battered hat. "A misunderstanding," he muttered through a toothless and less than convincing smile. He held up a handkerchief that had been knotted into an improvised bag. "I think I managed to retrieve all of my teeth. Do you think Poppy could put them back in or will I have to regrow them?"

.oOo.

Harry studied the letter he'd received minutes after Dumbledore had left. Then he consigned it to the kitchen fire, using the poker to make sure that it was burnt to ashes.

Taking a fresh scrap of paper, he sharpened his quill. and dipped it in the inkwell as he considered how to best to frame his intent.

'Lord Voldemort,' he wrote. 'Your offer is most timely...'


	6. Rokubi Says

"So, tell me something," the Rokubi's jinchuuriki said pleasently. The container for the Six-Tailed Wolf was a comparatively old man by shinobi standards and his face was marked by a long scar that crossed his forehead and the bridge of his nose before disappearing briefly under an eyepatch and reappearing to trail down down his left cheek to the corner of his jaw. Given the uncanny healing that the other jinchuuriki possessed, the wound that inflicted the mark must have been a terrible one. "What do you and your organisation want with me? My prisoner, more precisely."

He was rather remarkably cheerful given that he was currently bound by wrists and ankles with ninja wire and then bound, again by wires, to Kisame's sword. Permanent contact with Sameheda would be painful even if it wasn't draining away at your chakra.

"Shut up," Kisame snorted.

"No, seriously," the man protested. "I'm just consumed by curiousity here. You're the first people to seek me out in about twenty years - I'm reasonably sure that my home village is quite convinced that I'm long dead. But you go to all the trouble of hunting me down, beating me up and now you're hauling me off to some undisclosed location. It's quite the little mystery."

"Shut up," Kisame ordered again.

The old man chuckled. "Now what could a couple of famous Nuke-nin - S-ranked, no less - want with little old me? Oh, I suppose that you could have been hired to kill me in revenge for something, but you could have done that back there. No need to drag me around all this way if that's all that this is about. No, there's a bigger plan here. So what's the story?"

"None of your business," growled Kisame. Didn't the old fart ever shut up? He was worse than the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki.

"Aw, come on. Who am I supposed to tell?"

"Shut up!"

"Twirl your mustache and gloat a little, you know you want to."

"I don't have a mustache."

The jinchuuriki sighed. "Your partner just isn't getting into this," he called to Itachi, who ignored him. "I know, how about I sing a song to cheer you up. Scowling like that all the time can't be good for you!" He took a deep breath. "I know a song that'll get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves. I know a song that'll get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves. I know a song that'll get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves. I know a song that'll get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves. I know a song that'll get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves. I know a song that'll get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves. I know a song that'll -"

"SHUT UP!" Kisame screamed and started smacking Sameheda against trees, leading with the side to which the jinchuuriki was bound.

"-get on your nerves - ow - get on your - ack! - nerves, get on - ouch - your nerves. I know a - yeOW! - song that'll -"

"Kisame," Itachi ordered. "Stop that. We need him alive."

"Aha! I knew that you wanted me alive for something," the now rather bruised and battered man declared smugly. "Tell you what, you tell me about it and I'll stop singing."

"No." "Deal!"

The two Akatsuki members glared at each other. To be more precise, Kisame glared and Itachi stared, although for the senior surviving member of the Uchiha family, starting pretty much counted as glaring. Kisame broke the silence. "It's alright for you, you aren't carrying him!"

Itachi shrugged. "We're taking you to have the Rokubi removed from you and bound into a statue," he explained tersely. "Once we have all nine of the Bijuu we will use their power to conquer the world."

There was a pause as the prisoner matched gazes with Itachi, and then the man began to laugh. "Y'know, I thought I'd seen everything, but I have to admit you caught me offguard there. Never would have figured on an Uchiha having a sense of humour. It's kind of novel, like a talking dog."

"What's novel about talking dogs?" Itachi enquired.

Kisame and the jinchuuriki exchanged looks. "You encounter a lot of talking dogs, Itachi?" asked the former Mist-nin.

"Between the Inuzuka and Hatake Kakashi's summonings?" Itachi asked archly. "All the time when I was in Konoha."

"Why'd you say he has a sense of humour?" Kisame asked.

The jinchuuriki looked surprised. "Why that tall tale he spun about your plans, of course. Really, what are you up to?"

"It's just what he said," Kisame told him as Itachi moved off ahead of them. "Rip the bijuu out of you, then use the combined power of all nine to conquer the world."

"Just like that, huh?" the Rokubi's container said sarcastically. "And how are you going to use that power, may I ask? You're a bit old to become a jinchuuriki and amusing as it would be to watch you exploding as a Bijuu burst out of you, I don't see how it would help you achieve your goals."

"It's..." Kisame paused. Now that he thought about it, he wasn't quite sure of the mechanics of using the power of the Bijuu. "It's complicated. And I'm not going into detail."

"Does it involve that very fetching nail polish that you're wearing? I sure wish I was in a secret organisation so I could wear purple nail polish like that." Sarcasm was practically dripping off the words. "Do you all sit around in the evening, painting each other's nails and exchanging beauty tips?"

"Didn't you say you'd shut up if we told you what we were doing?" Kisame demanded.

The jinchuuriki smirked. "I said I'd stop singing," he explained brightly. "And look, I haven't sung a single note since. Never said I'd quit talking to you." He paused. "That'd be rude."

I'll just ignore him, Kisame decided. It shouldn't be that hard now that he's stopped singing.

"So, how are things with you and your girlfriend?" the jinchuuriki asked.

"Girlfriend?" Kisame asked. Dammit, fell into his trap, he cursed himself.

"You know, the Uchiha up ahead?" the jinchuuriki said brightly. "Does she have a nice ass under that cloak?"

"Are you crazy?" Kisame exclaimed. "Itachi's a guy, you moron."

The man considered that, a brief but blessed moment of silence. "Okay, so how taut is your boyfriend's ass? I'm not prejudiced."

"Listen you fleabitten mutt," Kisame growled, stopping walking to shake Sameheda back and forth for emphasis. "Itachi is a guy! I am a guy! He is not gay! I am not gay! And we are not a goddamn couple!"

"Kisame!" snapped Itachi. "Stop playing with our prize."

"He's really got you whipped..." the jinchuuriki advised as Kisame obediently resumed walking.

"Shut up!" Kisame demanded, but there was a slight hint of a whine in his voice.

"Touchy subject?" asked the man sweetly. "Okay, I tell you what - let's talk about something else. Which bijuu are you going to be using for this little game of yours?"

"All nine," Kisame grunted.

The man started laughing again. "Oh you crack me up, kid. Really you do. You're gonna use all nine of the Bijuu? But which nine? You dumbass."

"What the hell are you talking about, mutt?" Kisame grunted. "There are nine Bijuu. Everyone knows that. Always have been."

"Oh reeeally?"

"Yeah. What, how could there be more? The one tail, the two tail and so on up to the nine tail."

The Six Tail's container continued to cackle. "There's no law that says that there has to be, fishface. Fact is the number changes every now and then. Didn't you hear about how Ichibi no Shukaku used to be a monk from the Country of the Wind? Do you think that he was the first One-Tail? Or the only one? Demons come and demons go, it happens all the time. Someone seals a demon away and destroys it, some other schmuck turns himself into a demon. One demon grows more powerful and sprouts another tail, another gets beaten down and loses a tail. There's no special bonus to having one of each, shit for brains."


	7. Looped Prodigies

Sakura folded her hands demurely in front of her. "My name is Haruno Sakura. I like yaoi manga and manipulating people through genjutsu into acting out my fantasies. I also liked watching Sasuke and Naruto kissing earlier -" She paused and smiled at the two wide-eyed boys. "- it was very hot."

Naruto and Sasuke clutched each other in terror and then realised what they were doing and bolted for opposite sides of the roof. Unfortunately they both chose to run in the direction they were already facing, leading to a second liplock of the day.

Sakura giggled with just enough pitch to be be frightening, while still decorous. Naruto tore himself away from the impromtu kiss and dived over the railing, not caring where he would land. Sasuke, overcome with unfamiliar emotion (what emotion he wasn't sure, so unaccustomed as he was to anything but angst) that he simply fainted.

"My ambition..." Sakura said, turning her jade green eyes towards a suddenly nervous Kakashi. "How well do you get along with Maito Gai, Kakashi-sensei?"

oOo

Sasuke: "My dream... no, call it my ambition... I want to know why the girls all whisper in corners about me and giggle. What am I doing wrong? Why will no one share the joke with me?"

oOo

"I am merely a kage bushin of Uzumaki Naruto, who would like to advise you that he rules, you drool and he has stolen your genin team. If you want them back then you must prove that you are worthy of being our jounin-sensei by finding us."

Kakashi blinked. Well, winked, technically. And then looked over at Sasuke and Sakura.

"Oh, we're kage bushins as well," Sakura said brightly and dropped the henge of Naruto. "I was inserted to replace Sakura when Naruto abducted her at lunch time."

Sasuke nodded and dropped his own henge. "Sasuke was even easier to capture."

"There are a couple of other bushins replacing other members of my class," Naruto bragged. "We should be halfway to Lightning Country by now. I'd like to thank Konoha Ninja Academy for funding the rest of my life by giving me so many illtrained wannabe ninja to sell to Hidden Cloud as samples of their bloodline limits. You have... six hours, to catch me." Then all three of the clones dispelled themselves.

oOo

Sasuke scowled. "I am Sasuke. I like practising how to kill my brother. I dislike barriers to killing my brother. My ambition is to find the one person I must kill in order to obtain absolute mastery of my bloodline limit and then kill my brother... over and over again..."

"Er... pinky?" Kakashi asked a little nervously. Mental note, don't ever be alone with this little freak.

Sakura said nothing.

"I have killed her to try to activate my Sharingan. She failed to aid me with this."

oOo

Kakashi sighed. "Right, I'm Hatake Kakashi. You can call me God. I like students who work together and put the wellbeing of team and village above their personal ambitions. I dislike dumbass loud brats with no sense of stealth, weak fangirls more interested in romance than work and idiot avengers who whore themselves out for power. No need to introduce yourselves, I've been spying on you for a while now. Be at Training Ground Eight tomorrow at dawn. You mission is to convince me that you are what I like, not what I dislike. Failure..." He glared. "Don't fail."

oOo

Kakashi sighed as he saw his new team. He wasn't real happy about this. Hell, the Hokage wasn't real happy about this. Unfortunately events had forced their hands.

"Right," he told the three newly minted genin. "Normally there would be another test, run by me, to check that in addition to having the basic grounding in shinobi skills that the Academy, that you are mentally prepared for your obligations as Konoha ninja. Unfortunately this is not a luxury that we have. If you are not suited to Shinobi work, then we will find out in the field and you will probably die."

The jounin gestured for the three genin to follow him out of the Academy. "We're going to a staging area on the border with Lightning Country where we will be acting as part of the 33rd Strike Force. So, tell me about yourselves. Likes, dislikes, goals. Pinky, you're up first."

Sakura straightened slightly. Even having been on the other end of it, Kakashi found military behavior by a six year old to be creepy. "Hai! Haruno Sakura. I like my family, my friend Ino-chan and studying medical jutsu. I dislike idiots who don't think before they act." She glared at Naruto. "And I'm going to break that bitch Nekomata of Clouds."

"I am aware of your medical jutsu interest," Kakashi told the girl, orphaned in a terror raid by Hidden Cloud's jinchuriki. "If you live long enough then you're going to get a lot of practical experience with them in the next couple of years. Emo, you next."

Dark eyes narrowed slightly, but the Sharingan did not activate. Good, at least he had some control. "Uchiha Sasuke. I like training with my brother. I dislike Hidden Cloud trying to steal our bloodlines. I intend to surpass my brother Itachi."

Uh huh. The younger of the two Uchiha prodigies of this generation and some said the stronger of the two. Definitely future elite material, Kakashi thought and a little part of his soul died at the thought of what he'd be putting them through in the future. "You," he ordered, looking at the final member of Team Seven.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto," the blond terror said defiantly. "I like Hinata-chan and I'm not going to let anyone hurt her. I despise cowards who want peace at any price as long as someone else has to pay it. I'm going to finish this war that I started."

Kakashi nodded. "Well if you run into any high-ranking ninja of other villages, Uzumaki, try to take them alive this time. We don't need another war."

oOo

Kakashi's one visible eye twitched as he looked at his 'team'.

"Bored..." Naruto sighed, lying on one of the desks in the classroom, legs dangling off one end. "Bored, bored, bored..." His head lolled back on the desk and the next thing out of his mouth was a snore.

Sakura, on the other hand, was completely ignoring everyone else and had evidently used her hours in the classroom to use chalk and blackboard to work out some sort of complex chakra-balancing equation. Kakashi wasn't sure what it was, but judging by the fact that she'd run out of blackboard and was now more than halfway round the room's walls it wasn't random doodling.

The third member of the team was... uh, there didn't seem to be a third member of the team. Kakashi zeroed in on one of the desks, on which lay a Konoha forehead protector and a standard kunai-holster, both weighing down a small scroll. Leaving the two genin alone for the moment he walked over and opened the scroll.

Dear jounin-sensei.

I have reconsidered my goals in life and decided not to enter the service of Konoha as a shinobi. After some consideration I have decided to live a life of quiet contemplation in a remote monastery.

Please ask the Hokage to liquidate all remaining wealth of the Uchiha Clan and donate the proceeds to the Widows and Orphans Fund.

respectfully,

Uchiha Sasuke.

P.S. Please tell Itachi that I forgive him.

Kakashi sighed. "Funny prank, Uzumaki. Now where's the Uchiha really gone?"

Naruto didn't wake, but Sakura replied in an absent voice: "It's no prank, jounin-san. Sasuke decided he had a religious calling."

"And he forgave his brother? That doesn't sound like him, judging from his psychological profile?"

"He decided that it was the greatest insult that he could offer to the man," Sakura said in the same absent voice.

It only took Kakashi a moment to consider the likely reaction of the S-ranked Missing-Nin to hearing that he had been forgiven and that his little brother had decided to become a monk. Then this was swiftly overtaken as he imagined the reactions of certain people within the village to the news. "Well shit."

oOo

"Where are the other two?" Kakashi asked as he leant on the door to the classroom. It was the pinkette and the kyuubi-vessel that was missing, maybe they were having private time, like Kei and the mysterious masked shinobi had in chapter 17 of Icha Icha Paradise. The jounin's cheeks colored slightly, but his mask hid the expression.

"They're doing stuff," Sasuke said, still working on inking out an intricate design on a large sheet of paper.

"Stuff?"

"Important stuff."

Kakashi considered that. Well if it was important stuff... Wait, he was the teacher right? He was important. They should wait for him! "What sort of important stuff?" he asked. This teaching stuff was hard. And he couldn't fail them at the bell test until tomorrow at the earliest!

Sasuke sighed. "You're going to nag me about this, aren't you?" he asked rhetorically.

"...maybe?"

"Okay, give me a minute." Sasuke finished inking out the rest of the what was now evidently some sort of summoning seal and then left it to dry while he started carefully washing the ink out of the brush, glancing up at the clock on the wall. "Well, by now Naruto should have assassinated Danzo and be most of the way through briefing the ROOT members on their transition to forming the new ANBU Demolition Corps."

"The ANBU don't have a Demolition Corps," Kakashi said, starting to list the rather large number of things that were just plain wrong with what the genin was saying.

"They do now. Apparently, when he's Hokage, Naruto likes the idea of being able to convert any Hidden Villages that attack Konoha into the Village Hidden in the Crater of Smoking Glass. Don't expect to see him for our first couple of missions... well, you'll see him but it will be a ROOT agent in disguise as him. Hopefully not the one with the penis-fixation."

Kakashi blinked "This is some sort of joke, right?"

"I wish. Bloody pervert. Sakura will be doing..." He frowned. "Hmm, depends on her mood. Hinata probably."

"Hinata?" asked Kakashi, completely lost.

"Do you remember how Kei used an implausible henge into a guy to seduce her rival Yomi?"

Kakashi frowned. "That's not in any edition of Icha Icha Paradise!" he declared with the confidence of an expert on the subject.

"Chapter Seven, Volume Twelve," Sasuke reminded him.

"Volume Twelve isn't out until next month," Kakashi protested. Then his eye narrowed. "Is it?"

Sasuke blinked. "It's not? Oh... yeah, you're right. I - uh - got a look at the printer's set."

"Whoa!" Kakashi was seriously impressed. Jiraiya's printers took their confidentiality seriously. Kunoichi had been... well not maimed, but seriously embarassed trying to get in to sabotage production. Even male shinobi would have trouble getting in.

"Want a look?" Sasuke asked slyly.

"You got a copy!" No wonder everyone said that the last Uchiha was a genius! Kakashi was on the verge of tears.

"No, but -" Sasuke activated his Sharingan. "- I have a perfect memory and I'm an expert artist. I think I could copy out a single chapter from memory in a half hour or so."

"What are you waiting for!?"

"There's something I need to do," Sasuke said, examining the ink on his seal. "Looks dry enough. Okay, I'll just be a minute and I'll get going with drawing it."

He laid out the seal on the ground, touched one toe to the seal and fed it a chakra charge. There was a puff of smoke and Sasuke thrust a kunai confidently into the smoke.

With a gasp, Uchiha Itachi fell backwards out of the smoke, his throat grinning open from one corner of his jaw to the other. He gasped, trying to say something, but failed, light fading swiftly from his eyes as his blood spread out on the floor. Sasuke ignored his brother, pulling the seal out from under Itachi's feet before blood could stain the paper. "Right," he said, flipping the paper over and then reaching for his brush. "Chapter Seven..."

oOo

"Let's see... my name is Haruno Sakura and I'm, uh, twelve. I like..." The girl frowned and then shrugged. "You know, screw it. I liked the look on your face when I killed Uchiha Itachi, the look on your face when I was named as the Rokudaime Hokage and the look on your face when I promised that I would be just as considerate of your son as his sensei as you were as my jounin-sensei."

"I didn't like the photos you sent me of you being anally penetrated by Orochimaru; the hate mail all your fangirls sent me because you kept chasing me for a date; and you subscribing me for a lifetime membership of the Icha Icha fanclub because 'I have to loosen up some'."

"Dreams and ambtions..." she scratched her head. "You know, I'm not sure that there's anything that I haven't done already... I suppose I'm looking for something new to do. Crimes of against nature, legendary heroic deeds... any suggestions?"

oOo

Naruto turned a dead, empty stare upon Kakashi.

"We are the Uzumaki Collective. We like genjutsu, pranks and generally messing with people's heads. Our dislikes are too many to discuss at this time. Our ambition is to replace everyone in the world with a Naruto. Without anyone noticing."

"Che, shut up dobe," Sasuke grumbled. "He's been going on like this all day," he added to Kakashi.

"Without," Naruto repeated expressionlessly. "Anyone noticing."

For an instant Kakashi could have sworn that someone was using a genjutsu on him, but it was probably just boredom at the totally predictable and utterly forgettable ambitions of Naruto. Ramen had been mentioned, he thought.

oOo

Team Seven's sensei sat carefully down on the bench and gestured for the three twelve year olds to line up in front of him.

"Now then. I've met you all before, of course," he said kindly. "However, if we're going to work together now then it's worth getting to know each other properly. So, why don't we all ask one question for someone else on the team to answer." He beamed amiably at them. "Sakura, you can go first."

She hesitated and then asked him: "Hokage-sama, why are you our sensei?"

The Professor chuckled. "It may surprise you to know that I was a jounin-sensei myself, long ago. I had three proud students, all of whom became the greatest of ninja, legends in their own lifetimes. I have to say, that I see elements of them in the three of you and felt it was only right that I be your teacher as well. Besides, this lets me stick Kakashi doing the paperwork for a year or two. That'll teach him to accept missions without reading them."

"Who were your students?" Naruto asked. "What happened to them?"

Sarutobi Hiruzen smiled thinly. "I think that that is two questions, Naruto. However, information is life for a shinobi so I will answer you. They became a drunken coward, a feckless lecher and the vilest traitor in the history of Konoha. They were the team so famous that they were known only as the Three Ninja. And I will ensure that you do not make the same mistakes that they did. By force if need be."

oOo


	8. Dragonball Q

Bulma glared at her cousin. "A FEW MORE DAYS!!!!"

"Oh come one Bulma, you know she's not _that_ bad," her cousin chided. "Kesh-chan can't be any more trouble than that husband of yours."

"DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH TROUBLE SHE'S CAUSED JUST TODAY!!! DO YOU!?!?!?!?" screamed the enraged inventor.

Vegeta scratched his head. The girl didn't seem any worse than he had been at that age. By Saiyajin standards, she was fairly normal. She might even turn out to be a good example for Trunks - the boy was such a wimp. He didn't even bully the other kids at school as far as Vegeta could tell.

Bulma was working up to a full-blown rant. "...AND THEN SHE SNUCK OFF AFTER SCHOOL. NOT INTO TOWN! NOT TO SEE A FRIEND! OH NO, _SHE_ SNUCK INTO KAMI'S LOOKOUT AND BROKE INTO THE PENDULUM ROOM!!!! SHE COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED, A TWELVE YEAR OLD TRYING OUT SOME OF THE COMBAT SETTINGS LIKE THAT!!!!!!"

.oOo.

Trunks stared at Kesh. "You're going to get into trouble, you know."

The girl looked at him blankly. "What's your point? I'm _always_ in trouble."

"Well, yeah." He frowned. "But I don't think Otousan's gonna like you taking some of his Saiba-seeds. Mom only cloned him a few and you took almost half."

"What's he gonna do?" she asked reasonably.

The boy stared at her in disbelief. She really didn't look much like his mother - her hair might be the same colour, but it was as wild as a Saiyan's. She was smaller as well, not much taller than him despite a two year age gap. "Spar with you until you can't sit down for a week."

She grinned wildly. "Oh, yeah. But I like sparring with your dad. If he gets really mad he might go Super-Saiyajin and I haven't fought anyone at that level yet."

"You didn't when you were in the Pendulum room?"

Kesh sniffed and finished examining the beans. "Nah, Poppo-san caught me before I got past the Saiyan invasion. So," she grinned. "Do you want to back out, or are you ready for some real training."

Trunks gulped. This didn't seem like such a good idea anymore, but he couldn't back out in front of Kesh.

.oOo.

Vegeta scowled down at the two children.

"_What_ have you been doing?" the Saiyajin prince barked.

Trunks glanced at Kesh. No help there. "We were... training, Otousan."

"Training," Vegeta said flatly.

Trunks nodded vigorously.

"You and Kesh were _training_ together."

"Is something wrong, Vegeta?" asked Bulma as she came out of her workshop.

"Some of my Saiba-seeds are missing, Onna. And Kesh and Trunks have been _training_."

The warning tones in his voice were totally unnecessary. After three weeks of Kesh staying with them, the words 'training' and 'Kesh' in the same sentence were enough for Bulma. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE THIS TIME!" she demanded, lifting Kesh bodily off the floor.

"Well since Vegeta-ojisan was too busy to train us we needed someone to train against, so I made some Saibamen," explained the pre-teen girl in a tone of sweet reason. A morbid memory of the same tone rang through Bulma's mind.

Kesh was sat on her bed, one of Trunk's Ranma 1/2 manga on her lap. "I'm sure I can figure it out, there has to be a way round the problems," she told Trunks. "Then we can be masters of the Neko-ken."

"Some... saiba... men," the blue-haired scientist muttered disbelievingly. "How many is 'some'?"

"Just a dozen or so," Kesh shrugged. "No biggie. They aren't all that tough."

"They're tough enough to kill Yamcha!" snapped Bulma. "And he's a hundred times the fighter you are, young lady."

Kesh chewed lightly on her lower lip. "No... he had about four or five times my power level back then, probably not much past fifteen or twenty times as high now..." She shrugged. "Anyway, Trunks was there... I only actually took out eight of them myself... Wow, I didn't know your face could turn that shade of purple, obaasan..."

.oOo.

Trunks gulped as he looked at his father's face. He'd already been raked over the coals by his mother for going along with Kesh's training plan. Now it looked like his dad was going to have a go.

"Do you have anything to say?" growled the Saiyajin prince.

Trunk hung his head. "No otousan."

"I should think not. Letting that human brat outdo you like that. You're a Saiyan, boy! My own son! How is it that one little human girl can outstrip you!? Your power level should be ten - no - a _hundred_ times hers! And against a few miserable Saibamen she killed two for every one you slew!" Vegeta's hands clenched around his cup, shattering it.

The half-Saiyajin stared up in disbelief. "You're not mad I took the seeds?"

Vegeta frowned. "What? Don't be ridiculous. I'm a Super-Saiyajin. What use are a few lousy Saiba-men to me? I'm talking about your half-hearted performance out there."

"But Otousan, she used the Kaio-ken!" protested Trunks. Actually, even with the Kaio-ken, Kesh's power level wasn't quite a fifth of Trunks'. But he didn't feel this was the moment to mention it.

"She what?"

"She used the Pendulum Room to watch Goku fighting against you and figured it out..."

Vegeta scowled. "Are you trying to suggest that that _human girl_ picked up a technique like that just by _watching_ it done!?"

.oOo.

Bulma slumped in her chair. "What the hell am I going to do with that girl?" she demanded of the air.

"Having trouble?" sneered Vegeta from his own chair.

"I swear, sometimes she's more trouble than _you_ are," his wife complained. "I know she's smart, so why can't she pick up on why what she gets up to is dangerous?"

"She knows, Onna," Vegeta disagreed flatly. "She just doesn't believe it's important."

"Oh, right, Mister Expert-on-Children like you'd know anything about human children."

Vegeta stretched and rose to his feet. "Why would I care about human children? She acts like a Saiyajin child. Maybe we should treat her like that instead of as a human," he said as he opened the door.

"She is a human," yelled Bulma after him. "What do you want to do? Shoot her off into space for a few years!?"

The Saiyan paused on the threshold. "Now _there_'s an idea."

.oOo.

Bulma was muttering something barely audible as she worked on the capsule.

"What was that about 'sub-standard Saiyajin junk' Onna?" growled Vegeta half-heartedly.

Bulma inadvertantly whacked her head on the the casing again. "OWWWW! What idiot built this anyway! This has to be the most idiotic way to organise a spaceship's insides I've ever seen. I could eat iron filings and _throw up_ something better!"

Vegeta sighed and grabbed her by the back of her belt, hoisting her until she was almost upside down. "Try it like _that_, Onna. Saiyans can fly so we don't have any trouble reaching anything in there."

"Hey, that _is_ better," Bulma said in surprise. "Now if I do that and this and then I..." She trailed off. "Vegeta?"

Grrrr. "What is it _now_?"

"I don't feel so good. All the blood's rushing to my head."

The Saiyajin Prince closed his eyes and counted to ten.

.oOo.

The capsule sat on one of the lawns of the Capsule Corp compound. It was the same one that had been used by Raditz all those years ago but Bulma had insisted on completely rebuilding it before she let Kesh use it.

Slightly to her surprise, Kesh had been a little dubious about going into space. It wasn't that the twelve year old was afraid, she discovered, as much as that she thought it would be boring out in space. The promise of an entire planet of training opportunities for her had finally convinced her - once Vegeta had grudgingly promised to show her a Super-Saiyajin transformation when she got back.

"Okay Kesh," Bulma said. "Now we've set up the navigation computer to send you to a planet quite near where we sent the Namekjin - a long way from anywhere that Freiza got to so there shouldn't be anything out there to cause you any trouble."

"Right, Obaasan." Kesh was in her usual baggy kung-fu costume with a long, chain belt around her belt. She also had a huge rucksack on her back.

"Now do you have all the capsules I gave you?"

The little girl rummaged through her pockets and pulled out a case. "Books for homework, spare clothes, special food store, two houses and a space radio. Yes Obaasan, they're all right here."

Trunks hurried out with a small bag. "Kesh, I got you some Senzu beans, just in case."

"Thanks Trunks, you're the best!"

The boy gave her a big hug. "Bye Kesh. I'm gonna miss you."

"Hey, I'll be back in no time!" Kesh grinned. "And I'll have lots of new training ideas, you betcha!"

Bulma winced.

Vegeta's eyes narrowed. "Right. Get in the capsule, brat."

"Sure thing Ojisan," Kesh chirped. "Bye Obaasan! Bye Trunks! See ya!"

Bulma glanced at Vegeta. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"She'll be fine," the man told her as the capsule blasted off into space.

"I know, I'm just worried about whoever's living on the planet."

Trunks looked up at the sky. "Bye Kesh," he whispered. "See ya."

.oOo.

And alone as she never had been in her entire life, Kesh huddled into a ball and laughed for almost an hour. This was going to be fun. An adventure at last!

Calm once again she began to examine the rest of her backpacks contents - the capsules that Bulma had no idea she had taken with her - and the saiyajin scanner that had once belonged to a warrior known as Raditz.

Pulling out a heavy volume and a toolbag, the small girl began to tear the unit apart, recalibrating it to exacting specifications into something that Bulma would never have permitted her...

A DragonBall detector.


	9. Faith of Sawall

Faith looked at the man opposite her. "You want me to do what?"

The man, a tall and rather dashing redhead with an artistically broken nose grinned. It was a rather engaging smile. "You're about to be accused of committing a theft in Transbelvia. You need to plead guilty," he said as if it was the best idea in the world.

"Are you nuts? I've never been to Transbelvia," the dark-haired Slayer said sarcastically.

"Of course not," he said with another of those ladykilling smiles. "There's no such country. But if you plead guilty then we can extradite you there - which should put a stop to those idiot assassins that keep being sent after you."

She sighed. "Why don't you go over this again, from the start. Who are you anyway?"

"Luke Reynard," he said cheerfully. "I'm working for the Roth legal firm on this case."

"So you're nothing to do with Wolfram & Hart or the Watcher's Council?" she asked suspiciously.

Reynard laughed. "Hardly. The Roths have been retained by your dad's family for years."

Faith's eyes widened. She rose to her feet and glared down at him. "My dad? I don't have a 'dad' you son of a bitch. I don't know what you want but you can go right to hell!"

.oOo.

Outside the prison, Luke lit a cigarette and perched on the side of his car. It had been years since he'd visited California and it was good to see the old sights again. He sat there smoking contemplatively for several minutes and weighing up his options before stubbing out his cigarette and pulling a deck of cards out of his jacket pocket.

Shuffling through the pack he extracted the card he wanted and gazed at intently for a moment. "Merle, do you have a minute?"

The reply came back swiftly. "Anything for my favorite Pattern-Ghost. What's happening, Rinaldo?"

Luke Reynard, or at least as perfect a copy as was likely to exist in all of Shadow, shrugged. "About what I expected, Merle. She doesn't believe me."

"You're slipping," said Merlin Sawall, King of Chaos, Prince of Thelbane and posesser of more titles than he cared to think about. "Deadliest salesman in the West, and you can't talk a teenager into getting out of jail."

Luke shrugged. "You're thinking of the other guy, Merle. I never finished my degree remember? It just means I use Plan B."

.oOo.

Faith groaned as she was slammed up against the wall. "Is it just me or are you guys getting better at this? 'Cause at this rate I hate to think how much it's gonna cost ol' W&H to keep hiring you guys."

The two demons looked at each other and shrugged. "Very well," said the smaller one, still pressing Faith's head against the wall with one hand. "Indulge my curiousity. W and H are...?"

Faith groaned. Another couple of minutes and she might have caught her breath enough to take them on. 'Yeah, sure,' she thought. 'And the Pope's a practising Muslim.' "What, Wolfram and Hart didn't send you?" she asked "I guess the Council must be branching out."

The two demons exchanged another significant gaze and the larger one - the one who hadn't even bothered to get involved in the fight yet - smirked. "It sounds as if she has offended two local powers."

The smaller one shrugged. "Oh well. Not important then." He pulled out a nasty looking dagger and held it against Faith's jugular vein. "There's a bonus if we take you back alive," he told her calmly. "Not a very big one though. Not enough that we'll put up with any misbehavior, you understand."

Faith considered her options. One, fight a guy who already kicked her ass, has a knife at her throat and a bigger buddy behind him. Two, play along and look for a better opening. Not really a very tough decision.

.oOo.

Luke cursed as he pulled his fingers back from the sheet of paper, sketched to show a simple but recognisable likeness of the girl he was trying to get hold of.

Dammit, how had the Courts found out about her so quickly? And how was he going to deal with two Lords of Chaos who already had her hostage?

He frowned and pulled out a trump that showed a tree on a rocky ledge. Focusing on it, he was glad to see the picture expand around him. "Corwin," he shouted. "It's Luke - get in touch fast, alright?" Then he lowered the card, letting his motel room come back into focus.

"Crap crap crap crap crap," he added for emphasis, reaching under his bed for the sword he'd brought with him. No time to go and ask to borrow Werewindle, so he'd better hope that this cheap copy would be enough if he had to go it alone.

Only a few minutes passed before he felt another presence in the room.

The man stood by the window was about his own height, black of hair and green of eye. He wore black pants and jacket over a silver-grey shirt and the sword at his hip was a silver reflection of the one Luke bore.


	10. Mission: Success

Kakashi had been trained from his earliest childhood to disguise or at least dissemble his emotional responses, a habit that had only been built upon during years as an ANBU. As a result, much as he felt like sighing in exasperation at the less admirable qualities of the genin he'd been lumbered with, only a skilled observer would have realised that his attention was not on the copy of Icha Icha Paradise that he was reading to his comrades at the memorial stone.

No chakra worth the mention and too much chakra to control. Hotheaded and nervous. Obsessed and distracted. Fractious and naive.

He'd told them that they should just quit as ninja but the minute he'd relented and passed them he was sure that the criticism had gone straight out of their empty little heads.

If there was even a single flaw that could cripple a ninja then he was sure that at least one of the three had it. None of them even wanted to serve Konoha as ninja, although they might not admit it even to themselves. Sakura wanted to be with Sasuke no matter where he was. Sasuke wanted to kill his brother no matter what it cost him. Naruto wanted attention from the village no matter what he had to do.

If Sasuke hadn't shared his food with Naruto at the last minute, Sakura certainly wouldn't have. Just like the other morons he'd failed over the years. Would Naruto have shared if the situation had been reversed? For Sakura, perhaps. Not for Sasuke.

Team Seven. Hah. What a team. Naruto and Sakura, between the two of them, might possibly add up to a single half-decent ninja. Sasuke... Sasuke might be salvagable. He had been willing to compromise just a little.

Kakashi frowned. If Sasuke could be salvaged as a ninja, was it possible to make something of Naruto and Sakura? Not if they were around Sasuke, he thought. Sasuke was a distraction to Sakura and without him she would either have to find another motivation or, better, quit. Naruto was just as distracted by the other boy, although for other reasons - his intense rivalry would be corrosive to teamwork. And there wasn't really much that they would benefit from learning from Kakashi - they both needed to get the basics down: strength, both chakra and physical, for Sakura; control, both chakra and physical, for Naruto. Sasuke was the only one who was really ready to learn the more advanced lessons that Kakashi could provide.

For a moment Kakashi tried to envisage a training session of him making Sakura and Naruto work on the basics while he taught Sasuke advanced jutsu. Yeah, right. Like that would work.

No, the only way to manage it would be to split them up. Sasuke wouldn't learn very much from D-rank missions anyway but they would be just the thing to settle Naruto and Sakura down and give them a wake up call about what the life of a ninja was really like. The only tricky part would be talking them around to it.

Behind his mask, Kakashi smiled. One jounin against three pre-teen ninja-only-by-technicality? He'd seen how that worked last night. The first rule was to divide them...

.oOo.

"...Sasuke, I'm making plans for training the three of you and I'd appreciate your opinion. Based off the performance of each of you in the Bell Test, it's clear that you are the strongest genin in the team and ready for training that the other two couldn't handle yet. Now, I don't think it would be wise to have them around while I'm training you - they would just be distractions and you'll need to focus on your training if you want to be able to kill Itachi..."

"Oh yes, I knew Itachi for years. He was my subordinate in the ANBU so I trained with him and fought alongside him. I learnt about using the Sharingan from him. But going back to what I was talking about, do you agree that Naruto and Sakura shouldn't be around while I'm training you up to your real potential...?"

.oOo.

"...Sakura, as you know Sasuke has powerful enemies. His entire family was wiped out years ago and he's given himself the mission of hunting down the man responsible, an S-rank Missing-Nin more dangerous than even I am. There are others, like Hidden Cloud, who would stop at nothing to secure control of his family's Bloodline Limit. Because of that I need to make sure that he's able to defend himself from those enemies, which means concentrating on his training."

"We need to keep this a secret and he's told me that you can be relied upon, so I'm going to trust you with playing an important role in protecting Sasuke. You're going to take charge of Naruto and make it appear as if Team Seven is just doing the normal D-rank missions that any new team does when they start out. I don't think that Naruto's mature enough to be trusted with the truth so you'll have to keep him from making a mess of things. Do you think that you can do this for Sasuke?"

.oOo.

"...Naruto, I was quite impressed by your Kage Bunshin during the Bell Test. Most genin couldn't even begin to use a powerful technique like that. Obviously Sasuke and Sakura are going to have to work very hard to catch up with you. Now, I've decided to split them up so that they aren't distracted, and I'd like you to help with training Sakura. However, I don't think it would be wise to tell them why we're doing this, you know how proud Sasuke is and Sakura's feelings would be hurt. So while I'm putting Sasuke through the extra training that he needs, what I'd like you to do is go on some simple missions with Sakura. I'm going to tell her that she's in charge but you've got to make sure that she does her fair share of the work, alright?"

.oOo.

"Hi," Kakashi said brightly from the rail of the bridge where he'd told the three genin of Team Seven to wait for him. It really was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, there were just enough clouds in the sky to keep it from being too warm and he'd not been interupted while he read the next three chapters to Obito and his old teacher. He was sure that they appreciated that, wherever they had gone to.

"YOU'RE LATE!" shouted Sakura and Naruto in unison.

Little brats. At least Kakashi's student wasn't shouting at him like that - it might mean that it was a bit more peaceful for him once he'd got rid of the deadweight. "Oh, not at all," the jounin assured them brightly. "I got here exactly when I intended to." He pulled a small scroll out of his jacket and tossed it to Sakura. "But I guess if you kids are in a hurry, I'll just give you this now."

Sakura caught the scroll and cracked the seal on it. Her face paled. "But Kakashi-sensei, this says we should have started an hour ago!"

"Well chop-chop, then," Kakashi smiled brightly behind his mask. "No time for dilly-dallying."

In what might have been the first sign of professionalism that Kakashi had ever seen in her, Sakura decided against throwing more verbal abuse at the jounin-sensei. "Naruto! We've got to hurry!" she shouted and started to run (pitifully slowly in Kakashi's opinion) back towards the residential area of Konoha.

"I'm coming, Sakura-chan!" Naruto shouted back and chased after her at a slightly more reputable pace.

"What will they be doing?" Sasuke asked, watching the other two ninja recede into the distance.

"Painting fences," Kakashi replied laconically. "Not really as useful for you as it will be for the two of them. Now then, how much do you know about katon jutsu?"


	11. Lost His Bottle

Behind his disguise, Orochimaru fumed as his new vessel failed to turn up on shedule for his fight with Gaara. If the patsie didn't turn up then he'd have to improvise another signal to kick off the invasion and improvising was always more Jiraiya's forte than the Snake-Sannin's.

'Perhaps I need to to motivate the old fool to produce him,' he decided. "Heh heh. Many ninja have that reaction when faced with Gaara," the Kazekage said smugly.

Sarutobi's face tightened. Embarassing him was one thing, but Hatake Kakashi and Uchiha Sasuke had just embarassed the whole Village of Konoha in the most public setting imaginable. He gestured to one of the ninja 'guarding' him and drew two fingers across his throat. The chuunin nodded and used shunshin to reach Genma in the middle of the arena and whisper a quick message.

The jounin acting as judge for the final round nodded. "As he has failed to arrive in time for his match," he said loudly. "Uchiha Sasuke... is disqualified. Sabaku no Gaara will advance to the match against Uzumaki Naruto."

There were approximately four different reactions to this statement.

Orochimaru resisted the temptation to start beating his head against the rail. 'Well, maybe Gaara will be frustrated enough to unleash the Bijuu on the Kyuubi-brat. It'd be overkill for a twerp like that, but it's something.'

The various Konoha ninja watching clenched fists and started quietly arranging a schedule for the vicious beatdown that Hatake Kakashi was going to get from every single one of them once he arrived. The Hokage got the first shot but after that he was fair game... (Maito Gai swore that if he didn't make Kakashi apologise to every single person in the village then he, personally, would burn Kakashi's entire collection of porn).

Various bookies looked at the number of bets on Uchiha Sasuke and started making plans to take long and expensive holidays off the profits this year.

And the last reaction was typified by the man who rose to his feet in the crowd and bellowed. "I JUST LOST MY SHIRT BETTING ON THAT LITTLE SHIT! HOW DARE HE BOTTLE OUT!" The fact that he was a visiting Daimyo only made him more obvious and within moments half the crowd were baying for Sasuke's blood.

Well, there was one other reaction but it was so close to Orochimaru's that it hardly needed mentioning. 'Well crap,' thought Shikamaru. 'If I quit now then I'll get lynched. That Sasuke's as troublesome as a girl.'

.oOo.

Gaara of the Desert was not having a good day.

He had high expectations for today - he'd get to kill Uchiha Sasuke (who was at least somewhat dangerous, perhaps due to the seal that gave him that odd chakra back in the Forest of Death) and Hyuuga Neji (whose insistence that he was a fated winner was clearly in error); as a warm-up before letting Mother out to play with a whole village of shinobi. Plus there would be hundreds of Sand and Sound ninja running around it, so there could be a few not at all accidental accidents happening to some of them as well. Bliss.

First the annoying one actually won his match, meaning that the Hyuuga would probably not be available to be killed. Still, swatting him later would be some compensation, particularly if he got all emotional about the Uchiha's death the way he did over that green one or the other Hyuuga.

Second, inexplicably, Uchiha Sasuke didn't turn up!

Gaara had been feeling significantly gypped at this point. Kankuro had given up before even entering the arena and Temari had been defeated by the lazy Leaf-nin (who'd left his own chakra so depleted that he wouldn't be any contest at all if he got as far as Gaara in the tournament). At this point, the annoying one was about the only consolation that he was getting.

If he could only find the right $£(^)$%^%( one among the clones that kept popping up around the arena to attack him. The annoying one just kept creating them as fast as Gaara could destroy them, something that was actually posing a slight drain to his chakra reserves. This annoying one, this Uzumaki Naruto did have some small strength after all. Not enough, but some.

With all this on his mind, it was perhaps understandable that Gaara's reaction to a spiral of leaves popping into existence in the arena was to attack it instantly.

The leaves, of course, were brushed aside by the mere air being pushed aside by the rush of sand but the two shinobi inside avoided serious injury only because the taller of the two grabbed his companion and used a kawarimi to swap them for two of the Uzumaki's clones that were obliterated by the rush of sand.

Halfway across the arena sheltering in the hole that he'd tunnelled while fighting Neji and that Shikamaru had used against that fan-girl Naruto blinked at the last memories of the two clones. The hell? Kakashi used two of my clones to protect himself and Sasuke? What if one of the clones had been the real me? There's no way that Kakashi-sensei could have known... and I'd have died for sure if I got hit like that! The boy paled. ...he didn't bother to teach me, he didn't bother to show up when I was fighting and he'd risk sacrificing me to protect Sasuke when they appeared someplace they shouldn't even be... that... that... BASTARD!

"You're supposed to wait for the fight to begin," Kakashi lectured Gaara, looking around. Huh, what was Naruto doing with all these clones in the arena? He'd calculated the time pretty carefully - allowing enough time for Huuga Neji to crush Naruto (he'd feel bad but the kid really had no chance and it would be a learning experience); a moderately long fight between Aburame Shino and the puppeteer before the Sand-nin was defeated; and an extended match between Nara Shikamaru and the little blonde sand-kunoichi that could go either way. So what was Naruto still doing in the arena and with Gaara as well? Had the matches been switched at the last minute?

Shiranui Genma chewed on his senbon. Despite the high-grade steel, it was going to need replacing after all the damage it was taking as recipient for the jounin's frustrations - he'd bet a lot of money on the Uchiha and against Uzumaki and while he wasn't going to blame the Kyuubi brat for the upset match (and from what Hayate had told him about the preliminaries, the kid must have been pretending weakness in them, which was admirably sneaky) losing money because the much touted prodigy had lost his nerve was a bit much.

"Kakashi, get your ass out of the arena before you screw up the damn match," he spat. "Uchiha, disqualified contestants have to find their own seats."

"Dis-" both new arrivals began, one noticably higher pitched than the other.

"GET OUT!" came the first of several shouts from the stands.

Up in the stands, the two Kages stared at each other. "On the one hand," the 'Kazekage' said. "That's two of your shinobi interfering with the match. Well, one and a half. On the other, if one of those clones he sacrificed had been the real Uzumaki then he'd have given Gaara the win. What is it that the Wind daimyo sees in your village anyway?"

The Hokage had all but forgotten about Orochimaru at this point, diverted by pleasing fantasies of Kakashi getting that snotty attitude beaten out of him once and for all.

.oOo.

Unfortunately, Gaara was not inclined to let Sasuke get away. He'd already been cheated once of his chance to kill the Uchiha and it did not lie within his nature to take a second disappointment philosophically. Before Kakashi or Sasuke could move to protest further or to depart the arena, the sand was upon them. Both sprang aside instinctively, seperating in an effort to force Gaara to divide his attention.

"Out!" Genma bellowed at Kakashi, desperately trying to reach Sasuke to enforce the order upon him physically. He was too far away...

But Naruto was not and Gaara's sand recoiled in a sudden but belated defense as Naruto repeated his subterranean efforts against Neji, this time emerging immediately behind Gaara and reaching up to bury a kunai right in Gaara's inner sand armour. "Konoha Secret Technique Revised:" he shouted. "Thousand Years of Pain Explosion!" Then he dived back into the tunnel, sand rampaging for a moment before the explosive seal wrapped around the kunai hilt detonated.

Sand went flying across the arena, obscuring everything. Kakashi prudently leapt away, up into the stands. Actually, this might not have been quite so prudent as he entered the stands right in front of Ino and Sakura, who promptly began throwing anything that came to hand at the man responsible for their Sasuke-kun's disqualification.

"Blood!" screamed Gaara. The sands began to part, gathering to him and revealing the changes that were overcoming him. His face was different, half of it shaped by a build-up of sand into a bizarre tanuki mask and his eyes - for those close enough to see - had gone from turquoise to black with four gold diamonds in place of pupils. One arm was encompassed as well, creating a huge limb capped with a clawed paw.

"Oh fuck," muttered Kankuro to Temari. "He's changing!"

Meanwhile, in the arena, Genma had missed catching Sasuke by a fraction of an inch. Rather than moving to escape like his mentor however, the genin was taking the fight to Gaara. Disqualified or not, he was in a fight with the Sand-nin now and he'd show them all the strength of the Uchiha clan. Sharingan eyes spun as chakra crackled around Sasuke's hand and a chirping sound familiar to only a few became audible through the arena as blue chakra carved a path through the still dusty air.

The Sharingan is a powerful doujutsu... but it isn't all that good at picking out precise details through an obscuring fog. And Sasuke was forgetting - or more to the point disregarding as unimportant, one detail.

Gaara wasn't the only person that he couldn't see yet. From above, those with clearer views shouted desperate warnings - warnings that undoubtedly saved a life for Naruto half-turned and the chidori that Sasuke drove inexorably towards the centre of mass of the first figure that he saw through the sand-laden air only struck the shoulder.

"TEME!" Naruto screamed as Sasuke rushed past (the Chidori guttering out, exhausted by the effort of ripping through inches of human flesh and bone) knocking Naruto away to the right of his charge. Naruto's right arm went spinning away to the left of his 'teammate'.

.oOo.

There was a howl of outrage from the crowd, but the sound was nothing to the rush of emotions through Sasuke. He'd killed the dobe. He'd used an assassination technique on one of his teammates. He didn't see the sand rushing towards him, for his eyes, of which he was so proud, were overwhelmed with images from the past of Naruto. He'd killed his best friend and spikes of pain drove through his eyes as the tomoe split and whirled fourfold in his eyes.

Uchiha Sasuke vanished in an explosion of sand, only to appear again, black flames raging around him. Up on the balcony occupied by the two Kages, Orochimaru flinched at the sudden feedback through the Heaven Seal he'd placed on Sasuke's neck. His pawn had suddenly been promoted, he noted, becoming far more dangerous... and correspondingly more valuable. But this situation was simply too unstable. Every minute that this went on was another moment for matters to go further outside of his expectations.

The signal for Kabuto and the Sound Four to begin their respective parts of the plan was simple enough. The trouble was that the plan didn't adequately account for Sasuke advancing this far this fast. There wasn't time anymore, so the Sound Four would have have to obtain Sasuke now and get away with him in the confusion of the invasion. That, of course, would leave Orochimaru and the old man's little duel open to outside interference, so he'd have to bring out his little equalizers onto the field straight away and use them to divert attention. Of course, those faces operating under his direction would probably be very diverting, he calculated. Between that and Gaara, who was right on the brink anyway, the old man's foolish sentimentality would almost certainly have him send any help away, more concerned for the wellbeing of his precious village than for his own life.

Orochimaru's decision was simultaneous with his action upon it.

.oOo.

Orochimaru sneered at the ANBU responding as he held his kunai at Sarutobi's throat. "Change of plans!" he called to the Sound Four as they rushed into position. "Collect our new recruit while I finish off this old business."

"I wish Orochimaru-sama would make up his mind," Tayuya muttered as the four of them headed back down the roof. A couple of ANBU moved to stop the four shinobi and ended up preceding the four down from the roof, their bodies falling to the arena floor with meaty thunks that were all but unnoticed in the sheer howling chaos that was spreading to engulf the entire structure.

"Isn't Kabuto supposed to be putting the damn civilians out of the way?" the kunoichi muttered, looking at the bodyguards of the various daimyo trying to protect their charges, disrupted by the panicking crowd and by the handful of ninja who'd already lost their employers and sought revenge or were just making pre-emptive strikes. The addition of the Sound-nin infiltrators was almost redundant at this point. "Moron."

"That's really harsh, Tayuya-san," Kabuto admonished politely from behind her.

"Yipe!" the redhead shrieked, whirling to locate the speaker. "Don't sneak up on me!"

"It would be hard enough to put a genjutsu on them with all the killing intent Gaara-san radiates... it would be a little much to manage it with all three of them down there..." Kabuto explained, waving down into the arena.

If sheer howling chaos described the stands then the actual arena floor was a thousand times worse. The judge and Sasuke's mentor had both abandoned the area to deal with the Sound-nins, which meant that the only three people down there were...

"Uchiha!" screamed Gaara. "DIE!" His sand was smashing around the arena like a tidal wave, and it looked as if the entire floor was tearing apart to add more and more earth to the swirling mass. The jinchuriki looked even less human than the four of them did when their Cursed Seals were active, which was saying a lot. Judging from the briefings, he was almost completely transitioned to his demon form, only his legs looking more or less human.

Uchiha Sasuke didn't look much better. It was pretty obvious that he wasn't in full control of the blazing black fires were slashing across the sand, or of the black shapes that were writing across his skin. Where the flames touched the sands they were fused instantly into twisted pillars of obsidian only to be torn apart by the continued rush of the sands. The younger of the two surviving Uchiha was flailing around with a column of fire dozens of times his height, trying to strike down Gaara with it, but the fires snaked, whiplike, and despite the fact that Gaara was immobilised for the moment by his transformation, the fires had yet to make contact.

"Orochimaru-sama wants us to go into that?" Kidomaru muttered. "Oh hell..."

"I do believe that the plans have all gone awry," Kabuto said cheerily. "Do I have to give you a push as Naruto-kun did the young Nara?"

"Heh, for trash, that blond kid was kind of amusing," Jirobo said. "Almost a pity that the Uchiha finished him off."

Kabuto's glasses caught the light, the lenses reflecting it and hiding his eyes. "Oh, I wouldn't count him out, just yet," he smiled.

Down in the arena, the sands and fire alike were swept by a red mist that was suddenly evident as a third thread to the symphony of hate and lethal intent that everyone within a mile that was sensitive to chakra could feel in their very bones.

"TEME!" screamed Uzumaki Naruto.

.oOo.

Sasuke blinked. That was the dobe that was standing up. Who he'd killed. Except that he was apparently not dead. But he couldn't have the Mangekyou unless he'd killed his best friend... (he didn't like Naruto that much, did he? Damn. His best friend was the dobe, how low could he go?) ...unless his brother was a lying bastard.

Fuck.

"ITACHI!" he screamed, throwing up his arms in frustration. The fires decided (did the damned things have a mind of their own?) to follow suit and blazed a trail up the side of the arena towards one of the stands. In barely a moment the black flames would reach the rail and start incinerating the audience above it (including Sakura, Ino and Chouji).

"Yaaah!" Sasuke screamed, the flames suddenly guttering out as he sprang into the air, propelled by the sudden jabbing of a Tiger Seal into his backside.

"Thousand Years of Pain!" Naruto shouted. "Take that, teme!"

Up in the stands almost everyone paused, sometimes in mid-fight, to look at the surprising comeback from Konoha's Number One Loudest Ninja. Only a moment before, they'd seen him fall to a devestating and treacherous attack that had destroyed his shoulder, an almost certainly fatal wound. And now he was back in the fight and apparently unscathed?

Only a few, in the know, realised the nature of the limb that now replaced the lost arm and shoulder, a pulsing red shape approximating the missing arm, forged entirely of chakra. "The monster is loose," muttered Kakashi.

"Shannaro!" screamed Sakura from the stands. "Naruto no baka! Stop getting in Sasuke-kun's w-" Thud. Temari brought her fan down in a single economical strike that dropped Sakura to her knees and then forwards to drape over the railing, unconcious.

"Thanks," Ino said gratefully. "If you hadn't I would have."

Temari gave her a sceptical look. "You do remember we're not on the same side, right?" she asked as she and Kankuro squared off against Ino and Chouji.

Down in the arena, Sasuke's chakra reserves looked at what he'd been drawing lately, compared it to their own depths and cancelled his credit. The Uchiha fainted from chakra exhaustion, face down on the floor, knees drawn up to leave his butt pointed up in the air.

.oOo.

A thousand miles away from Konoha, another Uchiha paused and looked in its direction.

"Something wrong?" his partner asked curiously.

"I just heard a scream," Uchiha Itachi said absently. "As if millions of fangirl crushes were cut off at once." He shook his head. "Now, what were we doing?"

.oOo.

"YOU WILL DIE!" screamed Gaara and he lumbered across the Arena, the sands forming two huge clawed arms that descended upon Naruto.

Naruto spun and his own arms came up, the one of chakra and the one of flesh and bone - although the latter was hard to recognise as the crimson chakra rose up from it, overlaying it and swelling until Gaara's clawed paws were met by equally huge paws of chakra, the claws interlocking, each arm pushing against the other - the chakra of the Kyubi and the sands of Shukaku locked into the classic pose for a test of strength.

"WHO ARE YOU!" came Gaara's bellow. "WHAT ARE YOU!? WHAT POWER IS THIS!?" Impossibly, he felt his feet sliding back on the sand of the arena floor. What force could possibly break the traction between him and his own sand?

Naruto, atypically, said nothing, his chakra continuing to push Gaara back.

"Impossible," Gaara hissed. "For this to happen... to this form of myself... to such a person..." He threw back his head. "UZUMAKI NARUTO! I SHALL NOT LOSE! UWAAAAA!!!"

The arena shook violently as Gaara's sand retreated suddenly. Smoke engulfed even the stands this time, hiding anything more than the basic outline of Gaara's monstrous shape, a shape that was growing and growing and GROWING...

"What the hell?" Naruto shouted. "There isn't room in the Arena you lunatic!"

"HAHAHAHAHAHA! DIE YOU INSECT!" shrieked Gaara as he loomed over Naruto, already larger than the Hokage Tower.

Naruto's face paled... and then his eye caught sight of something... something that reminded him of... YES! There might be a way!

Those fighting in the stands abandoned the effort and joined the others on streaming out of the building. Up on the roof, even Sarutobi paused as he saw the giant forming below him, growing until it would soon be as high as even this elevated battleground.

"Bijuu..." he whispered.

"You've got bigger concerns, old man," Orochimaru sneered. "Summoning: Worldly Resurrection!" Three coffins sprouted from the roof of the stands before the Hokage could gather his chakra to disrupt the summoning.

.oOo.

Seeing their chance of retreiving Sasuke vanishing and knowing that having his next body crushed by Gaara wouldn't make their master at all happy, the Sound Four dived into the arena.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" Naruto screamed as he slapped his hand down on the bloodstain left from where his arm had been blasted off by Sasuke. Smoke filled the arena completely, causing even more confusion up in the stands. Up on the rooftop, even Orochimaru himself paused as something HUGE hurtled upwards out of the arena.

In the end, it was Jiraiya who had the best view, from where he was riding one of Gamabunta's larger underlings to crush the serpents that had been unleashed by the invaders against Konoha's defensive structures. One moment, the arena was still, and the next, a gigantic sand-coloured Tanuki exploded upwards out of it, in a parabolic arc, it's face pushed upwards as if something had just hammered an uppercut into the bijuu's jaw.

"Aw fuck," Jiraiya muttered, as he realised that the beast would come down only a few hundred yards into the training grounds that lay behind the Hokage monument. Not even the Kyuubi had gotten so close to the heart of Konoha and if a battle on that scale erupted there then it would endanger the shelters dug into the cliff-face.

"What the?" rumbled a voice in the smoke that still filled the arena. Eyes went wide as the smoke cleared enough to reveal that the Arena floor was almost completely hidden by the massive orange mass of Gamabunta squatting in it, Naruto standing on his back. "Dammit, Jiraiya, don't summon me under things. I'm going to have such a... oh. It's you. Again."

"Gama-oyabun!" Naruto shouted. "Come fight together with me! I ask you this, oyabun!"

"No," the Toad-boss declined. "Firstly, there's nothing here worth my attention. Second, we haven't exchanged sakazuki yet..."

"Dammit!" Naruto shrieked. "I'm not old enough to drink sake yet! And it's not to fight here, it's the sand-tanuki! Come on! Isn't a boss supposed to help his underlings?"

"Yo, Gamabunta-dono!" came a shout from the rooftop and heads turned to stare at the three men standing like statues between Orochimaru and Sarutobi, the former of whom whipped out three kunai hastily, cursing himself for being distracted. "Help the boy!" shouted the blond man in the centre before the first kunai plunged into the back of his head.

"It's the Hokages!" a whisper went around the stands. "The Shodaime, the Nidaime and the Yondaime..." If this new development shocked those Konoha inhabitants in the stands, it sent a shockwave of panic through the the invaders at the thought of fighting against all four of the Hokages at once! While the oto-nin steadied themselves with the recollection that Orochimaru-sama didn't seem too bothered, the Suna-nin began a frantic retreat.

"Aren't you dead already, ya brat?" Gamabunta asked, squinting at the frozen form of the Yondaime. "Aw hell, alright. Where are we going, underling?"

Naruto shook off the shock at being acknowledged by the man who was at one and the same time his biggest hero and the cause of most of his suffering. "That way!" he shouted and Gamabunta bounded out of the Arena in a single leap.

"...fuck happened?" Jirobo muttered. The Sound Four had been brushed aside, almost casually, by the displaced air of the summoning, deposited in the arena stands again, though rather roughly.

"Still think that the kid's amusing?" Kidoumaru asked, picking himself out of the broken remains of three chairs. He looked around. "Huh. Can anyone see Tayuya?"

Kabuto shook his head. "Why is it, with a whole village at Orochimaru-sama's disposal, I still find that I have to do everything myself?" he asked himself as he jumped down into the arena and towards Sasuke.

.oOo.

Tayuya was not a happy Oto-nin. One moment she had been jumping down into the arena to retreive Orochimaru's new body and the next she was caught between a layer of rough silk below her and a mass of knobbly flesh above. On top of which it was pitch black. No sooner had she managed to get herself untangled (although her forehead protector was lost entirely, somewhere in the recesses behind her) than there was a sudden lurch and she tumbled out of the close confines to get a terrifying view of Konohagakure from a moving viewpoint about half a mile above the village.

"Oh shit!" she shrieked and clutched hold of the silk with both hands. Looking up, she realised that she was hanging from the cuff of a blue kimono large enough that it would probably cover any one of the buildings below, and that wearing the kimono was a huge, orange toad. It didn't take long for her to recognise the creature as a Summon - and the brief terror at the unidentified monster was quickly replaced by the more precisely formed fears that she was trapped and alone against the Toad-Sannin... who from Orochimaru's occasional mention was some sort of depraved pervert.

That fear, however, was one that Tayuya felt more capable of facing than the previous one. The ground was approaching rapidly and she swung up to twist her legs into the hem, hanging on for dear life with both her hands and her chakra.

The landing was actually softer than she thought, although she was still shaken around like a rag doll between the teeth of a dog. The instant that the toad had landed, it bounced up again - and not a moment too late as a storm of sand slashed through the air where it had rested, one raking mass passing only a few feet from where Tayuya dangled. "Fuck this!" she shrieked, remembering too late that she was in mid-air and didn't want to the attract the attention of the Toad's summoner.

"What was that?" came a shout from above them. The toad landed and jumped again, for much the same reason as before. "Gama-san, it sounded like there was someone down there.

Another jump. "I'm a little busy, brat," came the booming voice of the summons. "Check it out yourself."

Brat? Who called one of the sannin a brat? Tayuya's question was answered a moment later, when a blond-haired head poked itself over the Toad's shoulder to look down at her. It drew back immediately, but not before the Oto-nin recognised the face as belonging to the kid that had been fighting Gaara in the arena before Orochimaru-sama's next body arrived.

"Neechan!" came a shout from above, the kid apparently, his voice shocked. "Pull your skirt down, that's indecent! What if some pervert saw you?"

Tayuya reflexively started swearing at the idiot. She was hanging from the sleeve of a giant Summons that seemed bound and determined to fight a Bijuu - what did it matter who she flashed, as long as it wasn't the Toad-Sannin himself?

.oOo.

Sarutobi worked through a flurry of handsignals, lightning fast with fingers limber from a life-time of forming hand seals. It had been a complete pain rebuilding the ANBU sign language after Itachi had defected, but now he was glad that he had gone to the trouble for there was not a single doubt in his mind that Orochimaru would have read the older language like an open book even though he had never actually been a member of the Hokage's elite personal command.

Obediently, the ANBU who had been rushing to the aid of their Hokage scattered again. Under other circumstances, using ANBU as messengers would have been wasteful at best. Under these circumstances, it was possibly the only force that could have made their way through the howling chaos of all out shinobi battle being waged inside the walls of the Hidden Village and despite their best efforts, more than half of the force being sent were - at best - hindered by skirmishes.

Suddenly, Kakashi's opponent died as a kunai drove cleanly between two ribs to pierce the Sand ninja's heart. A moment later, a second ANBU closed a net of ninja wire and explosive tags around the ninja from Hidden Sound that was battling Gai and the Mighty Blue Beast of Konoha jumped back as the explosions tore through the unfortunate shinobi.

"Maito Gai, Hatake Kakashi," the ANBU Lieutenant who materialised between the two rivals declared. "The Sandaime Hokage requires your immediate assistance. Sarutobi Asuma. You are to take command of those shinobi within the arena and cover the withdrawal of our citizens to the nearest available bunker."

A moment later he was gone, along with his two subordinates and Kurenai saw barely a flicker as they entered the Arena's tunnels, a kunoichi from Hidden Sand dropping dead as they passed. Before the blood from the Sand ninja's slashed open throat had even begun to pool, Kakashi and Gai were heading for the Hokage's position.

Asuma nodded. "Kurenai, take all six of our genin and head for the medical rooms. You'll need to defend them while I get the rest of this lot moving."

.oOo.

Shukaku hit the ground hard and rolled before coming to his broad feet. The gigantic tanuki wasn't entirely sure what was happening but as felt the chakra of pursuit some things became clear.

It is worth mentioning that Gaara, not being a complete idiot, had actually researched the Tailed Beasts to the extent that the Kazekage had allowed him to access the information and that Shukaku had in fact paid attention to what its host had discovered.

In the aftermath of the Kyuubi's attack upon Konoha rumours had gone wild and the Sandaime Hokage, desperate to avoid the impression of weakness that might be created by his successor's demise, had fed the rumours by having propaganda spread widely. One of those items of propaganda had been a poster showing the Yondaime Hokage, riding on Gamabunta, facing off against the Kyuubi. The notation of the poster had declared this to have been the last moment before the Kyuubi had been destroyed.

Not sealed. Destroyed.

Shukaku was, of course, well aware that he and his kind could be sealed.

Destroyed?

No. There was no way that a Tailed Beast could be destroyed. No way, at least, that he or the other Tailed Beasts knew of. But the Yondaime Hokage had somehow managed it. And not just any Tailed Beast had been destroyed. The Kyuubi, the greatest of them all, had perished.

And now a blond Konoha ninja was chasing after him while riding Gamabunta.

Uh-oh.

Instinctively, the Tailed Beast turned and ran, thinking as frantically as a being of its somewhat elemental nature could.

.oOo.

Jiraiya reached the arena at almost the same moment as Kakashi and Gai, still riding the toad, a fact that did several hundred thousand ryou of damage to the arena. The Toad Hermit's face was noticably pale as he saw his student standing beside the less familiar shapes of the other Hokages. "Orochimaru," he hissed. "You unscrupulous bastard."

Sarutobi leapt back to join his impromptu team. Four Hokages and four of the most powerful shinobi ever to wear Konoha's forehead protector were facing off and the odds were as bad as any that the famed God of Shinobi had ever faced.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OMAKE

"Kakashi!" Gai called. "You cannot mean that.... that... THAT is escaping!" The Beautiful Blue Beast of Konoha appeared to be losing his grip on his 'explosive youthfulness' to judge from his pale face. Now if he would only lose his grip on Kakashi's vest and quit yelling into his face then the great Copy-nin could go demonstrate his total badassness and remind Konoha of why they put up with his perpetual lateness (and smut obsession).

"Gai," he said. "You're spitting in my face."

"Just answer the question," Asuma growled, digging his brass knuckles into the small of Kakashi's back. This close, even the cigarette smoke didn't mask the garlic that he tended to season his meals heavily with.

"Don't you think that the Sound-nin trying to invade us are marginally more of a problem here?" Kakashi sighed. "I mea-yeek!"

"Now that I have your COMPLETE attention," Kurenai whispered, "tell me exactly what you mean by 'the monster is loose'." Who knew that Kurenai's fingernails were that sharp? Kakashi whimpered and even Gai and Asuma backed off, nervously eyeing the kunoichi

"Dammit," Kakashi confessed. "I don't want to go down in history as the instructor of 'Kancho' Naruto! But he's making it his trademark move right in front of half Konoha's clientele! Do you have any idea what this will do to my reputation? And what if he uses it on me!?"

The other three jounin exchanged views. "And this is worse than your existing reputation?" Asuma asked.

"Yes!" Kakashi sobbed.

"My eternal rival!" Gai shouted. "You need not fear that Naruto will use such a terrible move upon you, his beloved teacher!"

"Yeah," Asuma muttered. "It's not like your other student used a move you taught him to almost kill him, is it?" Kakashi's visible eye was almost leaking tears.

"Er... excuse us?" came a voice from outside the little tableau. They turned around to see several dozen Sound-nin approaching. "Are you done? Can we get back to fighting now?"

"Kakashidoken!" shouted Gai all of a sudden. In a split second he had run behind Kakashi and formed a Tiger Seal. With an appalled shout of pain and humiliation, Kakashi went hurtling into the midst of the Sound-nin, scattering them.

"Gai, I'm surprised at you," Kurenai chided.

The spandex-clad jounin rammed one fist into a Sound-nin's face and then raised his thumb, leaving himself in a 'Good Guy pose'. "I promised my eternal rival that he need not fear Naruto using such a move upon him!" he declared proudly. "I never said I wouldn't do so myself!"


	12. Insurance Details

"It's amazing in a way that we haven't visited this region before," Captain Michael Chambers observed as he and the navigator of the USS _Prometheus_, Major Michael Bowen crunched numbers for their next sprint through hyperspace. The fact that both pilot and navigator shared a first name caused occasional confusion off-duty, particularly since the two were likely companions even then, sharing several hobbies - including regular bemoaning that Air Force regulations barred them from cultivating the extensive beards that they both coveted, instead limiting them to modest mustaches.

"Not many stargates very close to Earth," Bowen replied without looking up from the computer calculations that he was checking. "And there aren't all that many Goa'uld holdings that we know of between Earth and the edge of the Galaxy." The lack of information on this region was one reason that _Prometheus_ was testing the new hyperdrive, fitted after the forced layover on Tagrea, by spot-checking promising star systems in the area that NASA thought were likely to have planets. The astronomical data would hopefully be useful for the eggheads in that agency, once it was declassified.

Chambers shrugged. "It still seems weird no one's been out before. Anyway, I've got my figures done. You?"

"Just a minute."

True to his word, Bowen finished typing a moment later and shunted his results to the other officer for comparison. Usually navigation would be done entirely by the computer, but as this was as much a training voyage as anything Ronson had ordered the two of them to check as much as they could long hand, as a precaution against the navigation systems failing.

"Okay, figures match up to within the margin of error," agreed Chambers after a few seconds of comparison. "We heap big navigators now."

Bowen rolled his eyes at the derision - they'd both come up through bombers in their respective specialities but in the airforce, piloting simply had more kudos to it. "I suppose I might let you out on your own if you had a map and a compass to help you find your way at night," he joked back and twisted in his seat to look back at the woman in the centre seat. "We're good to go, Ma'am."

Lieutenant-Colonel Kathryn Grabowski, the _Prometheus_' second in command was holding down the bridge for this duty shift, reviewing the updated supply manifest that the galley had filed earlier in the day (among other exciting but actually quite important items of paperwork that were on her electronic desk). "And only thirty million times slower than the computer?" she asked wryly. "You're getting better at this, boys. Alright then. Captain Wulf, notify StarGate Command that we're moving on to the next system."

As Andrew Wulf typed the communique up for a burst transmission back to Earth via the _Prometheus_' subspace transmitter, Grabowski thumbed the shipwide speakers open. "Now hear this. Now hear this. Hyperspace in five minutes. Hyperspace in five minutes."

In minutes, Earth's first starship made a sweeping turn and darted through the hyperspace window generated by the powerful engines.

.oOo.

"Stealthstar's ready to launch," Tigh reported. He lowered his voice. "Are we really doing this, Bill?"

"We're really doing this," Commander William Adama said with a nod of confirmation. He lifted the handset next to his station on the Battlestar _Valkyrie_'s CIC. "Stealthstar." There was a hiss and click and then he could hear the soft breathing of the pilot he was about to send out. "How's it look, Bulldog?"

"All looks good, Commander," Lieutenant Daniel Novacek told him. "She isn't a Viper but the crate'll fly."

Adama's lips twisted in amusement. "I guess that she will. Good luck, Lieutenant," he rasped.

The commander had the mike halfway back to the rest and his lips were parting with the launch order when Novacek's breath caught. "Something out there!" the pilot snapped, almost simultaneously with an alarmed cry from a bridge officer as the DRADIS display crackled, something unidentified disrupting its detection abilities almost on top of the slim Battlestar.

Outside, a blue-white hyperspace window was forming almost directly in front of the _Valkyrie_'s left-side launch tubes. Only a second later, thousands of tons of starship bolted out of hyperspace as the _Prometheus_ arrived precisely on the targeted region of space. The odds against a hyperspace window intersecting a solid object by chance were literally astronomical, but the odds of what actually happened were even longer.

The _Prometheus_ emerged from hyperspace coasting rapidly along a converging course with the larger but barely drifting _Valkyrie_.

Grabowski had barely time to voice the first word of an order to evade, Adama without an outside view to see the situation for himself had no time to do anything except hope that the _Valkyrie_'s helmsman would react fast enough.

In fact, the battlestar slowed perceptibly as the young officer at the helm tried to retard the _Valkyrie_ enough to let the new arrival pass in front of it. At the same time, the _Prometheus_ reared up as Michael Chambers fired the ventral control thrusters, the only propulsion that would respond fast enough, in an attempt to boost the X-303 up and over the _Valkyrie_.

It was almost enough.

Almost.

With a scream of metal, the right flight deck of the _Prometheus_ sliced into the uppers of the _Valkyrie_'s wedge-shaped forward hull, tearing a gash more than fifty metres long through the layered armoured belts. Shards of the armour ripped through the flight deck, shattering the fighters there and killing a dozen startled USAF flight engineers. One corner of the deck wedged against a structural beam inside the Valkyrie and for a terrifying moment, the smaller ship pivoted, the nose dropping again before the stress cracked the flight deck from front to back and it tore in two, seperating the two starships.

The _Valkyrie_'s troubles were not over however, as a secondary explosion in an ammuniton bunker for point defense cannon in that area of the ship detonated, spreading fire through upper decks thus far unbreached. The _Prometheus_ was hardly better off, spinning and with severe structural damage from the collision.

"Stabilise us!" Grabowski snapped to Chambers and hit the intercom for the commanding officer's quarters. "Colonel Ronson to the flight deck!"

With that done, she assessed the situation around her. The nervecentre of the _Prometheus_ had taken no direct damage but the sudden impact had flung Major Bowen halfway across the room and he lay unmoving on the floor. Wulf had fallen out of his chair, but was already getting back on his feet.

"Damage control?" she asked David Borgstrom at the engineer's station. The stocky officer was already scanning his board. "No responses from the starboard flight deck," he reported. "Minor issues all over the ship. The hyperdrive's shut down, but looks like it's just the failsafes. What the hell happened?"

"Just what I want to know," William Ronson said as the door slid aside to let him onto the flight deck.

"Collision, sir," Grabowski said, standing aside to let him take over the command station. "There was another ship right in front of us as we emerged from hyperspace. They must have been operating under some kind of stealth, because we didn't pick up any emissions in the area."

Ronson nodded his understanding as he sat down. "Alright, let's get this under control. Kathryn, see to Bowen. David, get damage control teams to work." He frowned out the forward window as the spin of the ship brought Valkyrie into view. "Damn, we've seriously dented them as well. Andrew, tell Stargate Command what's happened."


	13. Nogitsune Family Values

It wasn't everyday that a pair of the Sannin walked up to the gates of Konohagakure, evidently having combined their efforts to all but empty the large bottle of sake that Jiraiya was carrying, to judge by the way that they were staggering, arms around each other's shoulders. Tsunade was being trailed by Shizune, who had a slightly embarassed look on her face and was towing around a large suitcase.

Actually, neither of the pair had been seen in Konohagakure since either of the two chuunin watching the gates had graduated from the Academy, and somehow the idea that they would return drunk as lords hadn't been mentioned in the briefings this morning.

"Hey, you up there!" Jiriaya bellowed, waving the bottle wildly to attract attention. "Open the gates, there's th-three Konoha-nin back from our ad-dventures, ya hear me!"

"We'll need to see your papers!" called back one of the chuunin.

Jiraiay wiggled his fingers at them. "You don't need to see our papers!" he disagreed and giggled almost hysterically, turning to Tsunade. "Hey, flatchest, they don't need to see our papers, c-cause we're not the Sannin they're looking for."

"Don't call me flatchest," Tsunade responded, hammering him on the top of the head with one fist. The Toad Hermit fell to the floor, twitching, and his teammate snatched the bottle out of the air before it could follow him, hugging it to her ample bosom. "Precious alco-hic-alcohol," she crooned. "You're the only one that understands me, the only one that luuuurvess me..."

Slack-jawed, the two chuunin turned their attention to the third member of the little group, who shrugged helplessly before hoisting Jiraiya up and onto her shoulder. "Could you open the gates please?" she said. "They weren't always like - waah!" The latter cry was the result of her burden, apparently recovering, taking it upon himself to explore her posterior with both hands. Shizune dropped him promply and hiked up her kimono hem as a prelude to stamping vigorously on his head. "Stupid - old - pervert!" she shouted.

"Oh kami," the older of the two chuunin muttered. "I thought that my sensei was exaggerating when he talked about the Sannin's bad habits."

"All my illusions are shattered," his comrade agreed sadly. "Maybe we should give up on being ninja before we wind up like that."

"Are you nuts?" the first man asked. "Going nuts is a small price to pay if we wind up like Jiraiya, travelling with two babes like that! Open the gate, quickly."

-=-

The little trio of shinobi stumbled along the road until they were masked by some buildings from the view of the two chuunin and then ducked into an alleyway, dropping their drunken demeanors as easily as they did the appearances of Jiraiya, Tsunade and Shizune. "Did you have to hit me like that?" asked the male member of the group rubbing at his head.

"No, there are many other ways that I could have hit you, dear," said the older of the two women, who had been disguised as Tsunade. "But some of them would have impaired your ability to provide grandchildren."

"Plus, you deserved it," the other woman interjected. "You grabbed my ass, Mifune. That's disgusting - I'm your sister."

Their mother sighed. "I really shouldn't let you hang around with ningen so much if you're going to pick up these silly ideas from them. There's absolutely nothing wrong with keeping things in the family," she declared, ignoring the revolted looks on the faces of her offspring. "Although perhaps it wasn't the best time to grope Chie, Mifune. We are here on business, not to flirt."

"Mom," Chie said quietly. "The sheer... black kettleness of that remark astounds me."

"Yeah, I'm with you on that, Chie," agreed Mifune. "Sorry about the grab but it was just for versimilitude - I've researched this guy, he'd never have passed up an opportunity like that."

The young woman turned her glare upon him, looking rather more vulpine than usual. "Are you saying my ass isn't worth grabbing?"

"...I can't win," Mifune sighed.

"And it's taken you this many centuries to realise it?" his mother asked, raising one eyebrow. "Perhaps Kyuu-chan's not the only one of my children who's a little slow."

Chie rolled her eyes. "Slow, she says. Call a spade a spade, mom. Kyuu-chan's _stupid_. A nine tails nogitsune and she still managed to get sealed away by some idiot ningen. I thought only idiots like Shukaku messed up like that."

Mifune discreetly went to the other end of the alleyway and kept an eye out for passing shinobi while his mother grabbed Chie by her tails and vigorously detailed her displeasure over Chie's disrespectful attitude towards her Uncle Shukaku and implied criticism of the elder kitsune's oldest and dearest friend Nibi-chan's lifestyle. He was sheltering in the shadows at the end and trying not to pay obvious attention to an anecdote that Chie would probably rather that he didn't know about (it involved Chie, Aunt Nibi, one of Chie's ex-boyfriends and three-dozen oysters) when his nose twitched at a somewhat familiar scent.

"Mom," he said, glancing in the direction that the wind was carrying the scent from. "I'm just going to check something, okay?" Taking her failure to interrupt Chie's 'instruction' as assent, he darted out of the alley, this time disguising himself as a ningen he'd seen a year or two back, although he picked a civilian outfit rather than the ninja gear that the ningen had worn and didn't bother copying the eye-catching crimson eyes and purple nailpolish that would have drawn attention. He wanted to be discreet after all.

-=-

It was another ordinary morning for Team Seven. They'd reported to the bridge where they always met at nine o'clock with the glum certainty that their fearless leader and teacher wouldn't bother to arrive until at least noon but would know of and reprimand for any lateness on their parts. Once they had exchanged their usual greetings, they got back to their usual routine - Sakura planning another scheme to inveigle Sasuke into going on a date with her; Sasuke brooding over the dismal prospects of his getting a chance to kill his brother today while he waited for his cue to refuse whatever invitation Sakura made today; and Naruto hoping that today Sakura would agree to date him once Sasuke turned her down again.

Today, however, there was an unscheduled deviation from the usual order of routine, for someone was approaching the bridge from the direction of Konoha. It was Naruto who looked first, catching sight of the dark-haired man coming down the path. "Eh, what's a civilian doing here?" he wondered. "I thought that there were just training grounds along this path."

"Baka!" Sakura snorted. "The village hires civilians to maintain the training grounds, he's probably here to fix something them." Nonetheless she looked up and a light blush touched her cheeks. "Wow, he's so handsome," she said wistfully. "Almost as handsome as you, Sasuke-kun," the fangirl added hastily, not wanting her crush to in any way misinterpret her words.

Sasuke, for his part, grunted and didn't bother looking over partly because he didn't care and partly because from his curent position, sitting on the decking of the bridge with his back against a piling, he couldn't have seen the man anyway.

"Hey," said Naruto after a moment. "He looks a bit like you, Sasuke-teme. Except his hair doesn't look like a duck's backside."

There was a thump as Sakura's fist met Naruto's face and Konoha's number one loudest shinobi went flying off the bridge, crashing down on the path that led to it. "Shannaro!" she shouted. "Sasuke-kun's hair is as pretty as the rest of him." Then she squinted at the still approaching man and frowned. "Still, he does look a little like you, Sasuke-kun. Do you have any relatives that it might be?"

The last Uchiha (except his brother, who didn't count to Sasuke and wouldn't count to anyone once Sasuke had killed him!) scowled. Somehow it figured that the defining tragedy of his life would be something that his fangirls would be completely oblivious to, even Sakura who was, perhaps fractionally less... no, she was just as annoying, but a tiny bit more useful than most of the others. Not much though. "Not unless it's my brother," he said, but lowered himself to look in the correct direction.

There was a pause, and then Naruto turned back to his team, saying, "He really, really looks like you, teme..." and broke off as he realised that Sasuke was no longer sitting on the bridge, but heading for him with murder in his crimson eyes. "Awk!" All he had time for was to drop to the floor to avoid the kunai in his teammate's hands.

Fortunately for Naruto, he was not in fact Sasuke's target. "ITACHI!" he screamed and sent two kunai hurtling towards the shape of his elder brother, forming the seals for a katon jutsu.

"Who?" asked the approaching man in surprise, in the moment before the two kunai thudded into his chest.

"DIEE-huh?" Sasuke said, his vengeance fuelled charge trailing off as the man fell backwards, body not even bending as he toppled like a great tree to lie on the ground, the kunai handles jutting out of his chest. "Itachi?"

"SA-SU-KE!" Sakura screeched as she ran up behind him, "What's the matter? What happened? Wh-who is he?"

"Hey, teme!" came an added commentary from Naruto. "The hell was that about? Why'd... why'd you just kill that guy! Are you crazy?"

"Good question," grumbled the fallen man, much to the utter shock of the three genin. The might only be very junior ninja but they were pretty sure that when a kunai's entire blade was embedded in that part of the chest then all there was left to do was make arrangements for a funeral. Undaunted by these facts, the man moved one hand up to the kunai and, with an awkward grip, pulled out first one and then the other, tossing them aside. "What did I ever do to you, dickless?"

"You killed my family!" Sasuke said, and his eyes narrowed. "Prepare to die!" he added, before vomiting a fireball onto the fallen man. Sakura and Naruto stared at him in horror as he began to cackle triumphantly. All three froze and spun on the spot to see the man, his chest unmarked and bearing not the least sign of fire damage, when they heard him chuckle from behind Sasuke.

"He killed your _family_?" Sakura asked Sasuke, horrified. She faced the man, pulling out one of her own kunai (which even Naruto didn't figure would be much use given what had already happened). "Is it true?"

"What's true?" Mifune (for it was he) said laconically. "That the boy has no dick?" Then the man shrugged. "I don't see how I could have killed his family though. I've never been here before. And what's with calling me a weasel?"

"You're..." Sasuke swallowed. "Not Itachi?"

Mifune sighed. "Look, weasels have four legs and fur," he told them. "Do I look like that? And why am I teaching you amateur zoology after you tried to kill me?"

Sasuke's legs gave out. "Itachi is my brother's name," he said, sickly. "Oh shit," he added as he finally calmed enough to put the rest of the situation back into perspective. He'd just tried (pretty hard) to kill an innocent passerby, who might not even be a shinobi, and certainly wasn't from Konohagakure.

"Man, Sasuke," Naruto said brightly. "When you screw up, you don't do things by halves, do ya?"

Mifune looked at him, and for a moment their eyes met. Naruto wondered at the expression on the man's face, smug realisation fading to an almost sadistic pleasure. "Sis!" Mifune said out loud and Naruto inexplicably felt as if his insides had turned to jelly. Then he definitely felt his face go red as the man stared at his stomach. "So this is where you've been hiding, hime-chan."

Sasuke's legs gave out from under him. The situation was just too surreal for even he to maintain his cool entirely. "So, Dobe," he said as the man he'd been trying to kill paused as if listening to a response. "Is there something you haven't been telling us, Naru-_chan_?"

"Yo, dickless," Mifune said irritably. "Having a private conversation here. Shut the hell up." He turned back to Naruto's belly. "Look, Kyuu-chan, there's no use whining about _me_ seeing you like this. Mom and Chie are here too and -"

Naruto didn't hear anything more, for there was a pulse of pain from his seal and suddenly he was somewhere else.

It took a moment for the young shinobi to get his bearings after the sudden relocation. He was standing in a metal chamber that was almost knee deep in water. In front of him, sturdy bars reached from beneath the water up to a ceiling so high that he couldn't actually see it in the shadows. Not just bars he realised, a barred gate with a lock even larger than he was. Behind the bars... he took an involuntary step backwards from the massive, orange-furred shape that had been in his nightmares ever since Mizuki had revealed to him what had been sealed within him the day that he was born.

"Start running, brat!" the Kyubi no Kitsune demanded in a terrible voice. "Run and run and pray that she never finds us!"

Naruto blinked. "What?"

"Run, you stupid ningen! It's that thing where you put one paw in front of the other as fast as you can, you idiot," the Kyubi spat in a voice that was, now that Naruto had calmed enough to listen properly, more hysterical than angry.

"I don't understand," Naruto protested. "What's so bad that you're frightened of? That guy? Just 'cause the Teme couldn't kill him doesn't make him _that_ dangerous, does it?"

The Kyubi ground its teeth and edged closer to the bars. Its shape blurred and then cleared to reveal a woman standing in it's place, hands clutching two of the bars that confined her, a face that displayed predatory beauty clearly agitated. Her hair and dress were the colour of copper, with a darker corset confining her chest and nine furry tails whipping around behind her. "I'm not scared of that idiot, ningen. That's my brother Mifune, I could tear him apart with half my tails tied behind my back. It's _her_ I'm scared of."

"Her?" Naruto asked, stalling for time. It sorta made sense that it would be a girl that the Kyubi was scared of, he agreed, noting for future reference that it was a totally surreal thing to be thinking. The terrible Kyubi no Kitsune was afraid of someone? Still, girls _were_ much scarier than boys, Sakura being a case in point. All Sasuke's glares were like nothing in comparison to Sakura smacking him around.

"She's the devil!" the Kyubi screeched. She saw Naruto's sceptical expression and moderated her tone. "She's _like_ the devil! And she's gonna be incredibly mad with me. It's all that stupid shinobi's fault for summoning a deathgod like that but she'll never accept that as an excuse. This is gonna be worse than the time I walked in on her and Shukaku!"

"Her and Shuugu...? Her and Shuugu what?"

The Kyubu shivered. "Trust me, you don't want to know."

"Eh, why should I trust you? I mean, you've been in here for all my life and this is the first time that you've ever bothered talking to me? How rude is that?"

"Listen you stupid ningen! Do you think that I want to talk to you? The only reason I'd lower myself to even notice someone as pathetic as you is under the direst of circumstances! Like these!"

There was a cough from behind Naruto and he turned to see the man, Mifune, standing in the water. He wasn't sure how he know it was Mifune though, for the man no longer looked like Sasuke's brother. Instead he was a slim man about the same height as Kakashi, with a face that was handsome in a rather vulpine fashion and wearing a black jacket and pants over a white shirt, all looking expensive and completely out of place in the waterylogged prison. "You know sis, ignoring me like that is pretty passive-aggressive, even for you. You had to know that Mom would want to find you, or at least find out what happened. The only reason that we even took this long is that we got sidetracked 'cause Mom thought there'd be some mass destruction to mark where you got your ass kicked."

"What the hell are you saying!" the Kyubi demanded, glaring at Mifune angrily. "I rampaged right through Fire Country until they stopped me. I'm a damned legend, they still tremble at the thought of me! Tell him, brat."

Naruto shrugged. "I dunno, if they said more in class about you than that the Yondaime killed you then I guess I must have slept through them."

She screeched something that Naruto was pretty sure was a profanity and turned her back on him. Mifune chuckled and gave the boy an approving clap on the shoulder.

-=-

Naruto blinked and saw Sasuke and Sakura looking at him slack-jawed. "What, do I have something on my face?"

"What's going on, Naruto?" Sakura demanded. "Who was that guy and why did he look like Sasuke-kun's brother? And what happened to him? He just put his hand on your stomach and it was like he got sucked inside you?"

"Uh, I don't know," Naruto protested. "I never saw him before!"

"You never saw who before?" asked an amused voice and the three genin whirled to see Kakashi leaning against one of the bridge railings, his little orange book already open in his hand. Behind him were standing two beautiful women in expensive-looking kimono, from their looks obviously mother and daughter.

"You're late!" Naruto shouted while Sasuke and Sakura shuffled nervously and tried to figure out how to explain the rather large burnt patch on the path.

Kakashi's expression, what could be seen of it, shifted in the way that the genin took to be an indulgent smile. "Ah, I was challenged to a game of Go by a green beast to defend the honour of your youthfulness," he explained. "And after he lost I had to witness him making a hundred apologies for his accusations."

"Liar!" Naruto shouted. "You're such a liar, Kakashi-sensei!"

"Lying is far more appropriate for a ninja than shouting, wouldn't you say?" Kakashi grinned behind his mask as his noisiest student subsided resentfully. "Now, today's mission is from Aibiko-dono. Her daughter moved here a few years ago and she's come all this way so that they can have a family reunion. Unfortunately, her daughter's quite shy and retiring, so she hasn't given her mother her address, so we're to find her."

Naruto could have sworn he heard a faint whimper as the older of the two women, who had a _definite_ resemblence to the Kyubi's human shape, met his eyes. "And you've found her already," she said to Kakashi. "How terribly efficient of you."

Kakashi gave her a guarded look. "Sometimes I even underestimate myself," he said as Aibiko swept forwards towards the genin.

"An impressive feat for someone as limited as a ningen," Aibiko's daughter said somewhat caustically as her mother grabbed hold of a startled Naruto by his biceps and began looking him over critically.

"Excuse me, young man," she said and quickly bent over and thrust her head into his stomach. Literally. Her neck was obviously entering his chest through his T-shirt, and her head was... well, Naruto had a suspicion that what it was inside of was the Yondaime's seal.

Sakura fainted.


	14. An Azula Is Me

We power-walked onto the stage at the top of Omashu. Ty Lee was at my left, ready to pounce if a sign was given. To my right Mai, guarded and watchful. I, of course, was leading them, a half pace ahead. Azula, Princess of the Fire Nation, me.

Mostly.

Waiting for us was another cluster of teenagers, albeit three that to all appearances were less impressive. Two youngsters in water tribe blue and a boy with a turban over his shaven scalp. Given he was still wearing air nomad clothes, I have to wonder who he thought he was fooling. And in a sling, an infant.

"We're here," the boy declared. "Where's Bumi?"

Ah yes. Our half of this little exchange. I raised one hand, snapped my fingers and pointed dramatically upwards. Chains rattled and the metal coffin that 'confined' the Mad King of Omashu was lowered towards us on a crane.

"Hey, everybody," the loony - and terrifyingly mighty - earthbender cackled. Quite frankly I would have suspected I'd be doing the Fire Nation a favour if I could persuade him to go with Aang. And that was without knowing he could apparently bend earth with a twitch of his wrinkly chin.

The casket settled against the planks behind us and I smiled in a pro forma fashion. "So. We both have what the other wants. This is how it will be." I had my right hand free so I jerked my thumb back at Mai. "My friend here will walk over and pick up her brother. Then I'll unchain your king and we walk away, leaving him to you."

The water tribe boy - yeah, Sokka, but the fact I know that is a secret for the moment - snorted. "Right. You'll get what you want and we're supposed to trust you, you - you - you dirty rotten extremely physically attractive fire nation person, you!" Then he blinked, apparently parsing what he had said.

"Sokka!" hissed the girl with him. Aha! Now I could admit to knowing his name. Scrawny little fellow, actually. No taller than me despite being a year or two older. Then again, he probably had another growth spurt in his future whereas I was unlikely to get much taller.

My smile grew contemptuous. "Well now... Sokka, is it? One side of this little encounter stole a child away. I'd say that those three have something to prove when it comes to their trustworthiness. Not myself and my friends, who are willing to lose a very valuable military prisoner to retrieve that little boy."

"We didn't take him, he came with us all on his own!" protested the turbaned kid.

"Of course." My voice dripped scepticism. "Now. Are we going to make this trade? Or not? Because we can do this on my terms, or not at all."

It looked as if the girl - Katara obviously - was going to support the plea of innocence, but Sokka grabbed her and covered her mouth with one hand. "We take it! We take it!"

"Fine then." My voice - Azula's voice - was positively silky. "Mai."

She didn't need more of a cue than that to stalk over to them. Dangerous, deadly young woman, that Mai. Probably more dangerous than me, and what sort of fucked up world had people more lethal than a lightning-wielding pyro with daddy issues and a streak of megalomania slightly wider than Czechoslovakia. Then again, that wasn't precisely me and I have the rather biased opinion that the change is for the better.

The innocent smile on the child's face was a contrast to her own razor sharp control. "It's him."

"What?" Katara's voice was indignant. "You don't think we'd bring another baby, did you?"

"That was one of the possibilities I considered. Perhaps I maligned you. But I can hardly put anything past a band of kidnappers, can I?" I waved my hand dismissively at the half-voiced protest. "Yes yes. A child this age made his way from a secure nursery at the top of the city to the gates at the bottom all on his own. Still, I suppose that I have no reason to hold you personally accountable... You are, after all, young and..." As Mai cleared my field of vision I let my eyes focus on the wrists of the younger boy and the tattoos there. The smile slipped from my face. "...well well. I was going to say expendable, but I think I'll go for naive instead. After all, you aren't expendable are you, Avatar Aang?"

Tension rippled through the meeting and Avatar and his companion took defensive stances. Mai's eyes widened and she hastened to carry her brother out of the line of fire. Not that I was planning on it.

"Is he hurt?"

She didn't seem to expect that question but shook her head.

"Then get him out of here before someone does something... rash." I looked at Sokka, who was holding his boomerang, Aang with his staff in hand and Katara whose waterbottle was open and ready to release it's contents. "It seems that the three of you, at least, really are trustworthy." With a gesture I hurled blue fire at the chain attached to Bumi's prison, melting through two links. "You kept your word so I will keep mine, even if you are enemies of the Fire Nation."

I didn't turn my back as I moved away from Bumi, leaving him to be rescued. Ty Lee was on my flank without a word of instruction. Anyone trying to attack me would be in for a rude surprise.

They looked surprised, sufficiently so that only Aang jumped forward to take possession of Bumi. "Really now, what did you expect me to do?"

Sokka's face screwed up as he resisted the urge to make a smart remark. How cute, he really did have some self-control after all.

"Aren't you going to open the box?" Katara asked.

My lips curled again, this time in disgust. "He's been using it as a toilet for the last week. Frankly, no. You want him so much, you can clean him up yourselves."

"Actually," Bumi cut in with his crazy laugh. "I have outstanding bladder and bowel control. I haven't had to go since they put me in here!"

"I really don't care." I pointed down to the nearest guard post, where armoured soldiers were looking nervously in my direction. I didn't blame them, if I got myself hurt they'd be in trouble. "Once I get down there, I'll be sending soldiers up here to apprehend you. If you're still here when they arrive then it's just too bad."

The last thing I heard from them as I went down the ladder, Ty Lee descending after me, was Bumi taking a serious tone. "Aang we need to talk..."

* * *

You're probably wondering what was going on here. God knows, I was.

At the risk of being obvious, that was me in the Azula suit. Which was weird, but I got used to it in a hurry. Of course, I was sharing the headspace with Azula's memories and her instincts, which was a considerably worse fit. The homicidal urges were just the beginning (and I thought I had had a temper problem before).

Mind you, if it wasn't for those instincts and memories, I would probably have been dead within about half an hour, probably tortured to death as an imposter, so it wasn't all bad. It was a damn lucky thing Ozai didn't get a look at my firebending before he sent me off to bring back Iroh and Zuko in matching metal bracelets, because if Little Miss Perfectionist's memories were anything to go by, I wasn't operating on her level at this point.

I guess I'm just not a naturalborn psychopath. Shame about that.

Li and Lo were more than happy to spend hours every day drilling some focus back into my head. It was the happy thought of maybe one day using it on them that helped me over the final hurdle to Azula's trademark blue flame, although lightning still evaded me.

Of course my first meeting with Zuko went just swimmingly...

* * *

"What are you doing here?"

I smiled slightly. "That's a warm welcome you're offering your favorite sister, Zuko."

"You're not my favorite sister."

"I'm your only sister; and therefore by default, I must be your favorite." I wasn't very accustomed to being a little sister and somehow I suspected Azula's memories wouldn't be the best of guides to the role.

Iroh hid his hands in his sleeves and bowed to me. "To what do we owe this honour, princess?"

I shook my head. "I'm not here to honour you. I probably should be - I don't say this sort of thing lightly as you should know, but I'm surprised that you're still alive brother. Surprised and perhaps just a little bit impressed." I held thumb and forefinger perhaps half an inch apart. "Just a little, of course."

Zuko shook his head. "You're lying."

"Why would I lie about something so obvious?" I asked him. "You fought the Avatar and lived. Hounded him from one end of the world to the other. I don't pretend that I couldn't have done better -" Arrogance was what he expected, so I provided it. "- but you have surpassed my expectations. So... congratulations. Don't worry though. I won't make a habit of offering them."

"You have told us only why you have not come here, Princess Azula." Iroh's eyes were deceptively lazy as he watched me. I could almost see how he would move should I pose a threat. Smooth, deadly violence upon a hair trigger.

I bowed my own head. "Ah yes. And I should perhaps be to the point." Then I looked up. "Father sent me here with orders to bring you back to the Fire Nation. Your quest to find the Avatar is over, Zuko."

His face was dismayed. "Someone has caught him?"

"No." I shook my head gravely. "No one has seen the Avatar since the North Pole, brother. Father has not rescinded your banishment: return to the Fire Nation without the Avatar and you face imprisonment until you die or the day he shows mercy... but I repeat myself. And I have been ordered to bring you back where that sentence will be carried out."

"You are lying. You always lie." Zuko seemed to cling to that as one spar of sanity.

"You know me Zuko. If I was in a position to tell you that your hopes were dashed and your life ruined would I lie to spare your feelings? When the truth is harsher than any lie, I have no cause to mislead you." Turning my eyes away from the pain in his, I met Iroh's wary gaze. "The charge is treason, both of you. It is the judgement of the Fire Lord that your actions at the North Pole prevented Admiral Zhao from conquering the Water Tribe and led directly to the devestation of our fleet."

"But that's -!" Outrage, on another's behalf? Well done, Zuko. Well done.

"It is the judgement of the Fire Lord." My voice was flat. "It is not the remit of any within the Fire Nation to speak against that writ."

Iroh placed his hand compassionately upon Zuko's shoulder. "And what will you do, Princess Azula?"

"I appeal to you with reason, brother, uncle." I held my hands out towards them. "You can leave this chamber only as my prisoners or as fugitives from the laws of our people."

Zuko's face stiffened with resolve. "You are lying. Father would never do this to me, to uncle."

I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly. When I opened them what I saw reflected in Zuko's eyes was an expression he had surely never seen on Azula's face. Compassion. Regret.

"I realise that this is hard for you, Zuko. Perhaps your being away has shielded you from this realisation and I am truly sorry I cannot let you live in that illusion any longer. Father has only one love and I regret to say that it is neither one of us."

Two eyes were wide with astonishment. Two were half-closed in rage.

Fire leapt into existence around my brother's hands.

"Don't be a fool, Zuko." I whispered.

He was fast and furious. Anger - raised this time on behalf of the father he believed I maligned - brought out that much was good in him.

I was not the true Azula's equal.

I was more than Zuko's.

Between us we wrecked the room. The attendants knew better than to intrude when Sozin's line settled matters with fire. Even Iroh stood back and let us wear each other out, the old dragon letting the youngsters exhaust their strength against each other before he exerted himself to remind us of his power. And watching, measuring us.

He must have seen something there for when Zuko fell, tumbled to the floor by a throw that bounced him of a wall, my uncle did not intervene to stop me when I instinctively flowed into the follow up finishing move.

I stopped myself, letting the rivulets of fire gutter away rather than hurling them down to destroy the momentarily helpless Zuko. "I won't be your instrument of suicide, Zuko. Live miserably if you must, but live. And hope for better days."

Iroh unclasped his hands. "Do you have advice for me, Princess Azula?"

My hair, half out of its neat topknot after my exertions, flapped behind me as I turned to him. "Strike me down."

He hesitated.

"By your wish for your nephew's life, strike me down and flee!"

"You are my favorite niece," he told me. And then the Dragon of West took my advice.

* * *

When I opened my eyes, I found myself laid out on the one couch left unscathed by the earlier brawl with Zuko. Somehow I did not expect that it was Zuko that had been thoughtful enough of my comfort.

Both were gone. Hopefully making for what was left of the Earth Kingdom and at least momentary safety. Then again, the confrontation wasn't exactly how they'd escaped me. Azula. Whoever. Possibly events would unroll differently. That would be difficult in some ways but then again, what was so great about those events? They left Azula - me at the moment - a wreck of a girl. I could live without that. I have enough neuroses of my own, thank you so very much.

My pursuit had of course led me south. In search of... how had Azula put it? Nimble. Agile. An elite team.

Ty Lee and Mai, in other words.

The circus bored me, just not my thing, but I endured it and refrained from the temptation to be indecorous and also from entertaining me at the expense of Ty Lee. I didn't mention wanting her on my mission of course, just that I was en route to Omashu where Mai was living these days. It would be almost like old times - how about she took a vacation to come with me? Just for a couple of weeks, I could see how happy she was... well, not literally but she told me her aura was pinker than it had ever been which I took to be a good thing.

And that put us in Omashu right about the time Tom-Tom had his little adventure and now you know as much as I do about my circumstances.

* * *

Aang pulled himself to his feet as I dismounted from my mongoose lizard. "Alright, you caught up with me." He still looked half-asleep but he brandished his staff confidently. "Now who are you and what do you want?"

Thankfully I was able to override Azula's rather biting wit. "You look tired, great-grandfather. Aren't you sleeping well?"

Admittedly, since I was one of the causes for his lack of sleep that probably didn't sound very sympathetic. Then again, the other major cause was his apparent inability to make a plan: I had seen several places where they could have forted up and hidden their exact location from me long enough to get some beauty sleep. It wasn't as if they didn't have a master earthbender with them!

His eyes narrowed indignantly, which didn't do anything to hide the bags under them. "What do you mean 'great-grandfather'?"

"Well your predecessor was from the Fire Nation and he was married. And he had children, grandchildren and..." I pressed the palm of one hand against my ribcage and bowed slightly. "At least one great-granddaughter, yours truly." I smiled letting him know exactly how amusing I found this. "So now that he's been reborn as you, I'd really like to welcome you back into the family, such as it is."

Aang's face was a picture to behold. Words literally cannot describe it - he looked at me with a horrified fascination that made it plain that he wanted desperately to deny what I was telling him... and couldn't. He might not be Toph but he wasn't without his own insight. His mouth worked, soundlessly, as he tried to put his feelings into words.

Fortunately, someone else spoke for him.

"Don't trust her, Avatar. Azula always lies."

Good old reliable Zuko. Always turning up just when it would be worst for him. He really has exquisitely bad timing. I turned my head and saw him standing at the mouth of a small alleyway, wearing plain clothes in Earth Kingdom colours. A straw hat covered the top of his head but he had one hand on the brim, ready to whip it away immediately it became an obstruction.

"Now really, would I ever be that predictable?" I said teasingly as I stepped aside, implicitly inviting him to move further into view. "Besides, the fact that mother was Roku's grand-daughter is hardly a secret. If you won't take my word for it, you could ask the Fire Sages... well, under the circumstances, I suppose you can't do that. Still, I'm sure that uncle can confirm it for you."

I glanced around. No Iroh. yet, anyway. Probably still drinking tea with Toph if events were following their expected path. And I honestly can't think of any reason that they wouldn't. "So where is he, by the way? If you have misplaced your geriatric companion I won't let you run off with mine." I nodded my head towards Aang., making it clear who I was calling geriatric.

"I'm not an old man!" Given the number of times he's used it as a disguise, I'm not sure why he found that offensive.

"You're a hundred and twelve years old and it seems all your hair has fallen out. Let's not even mention the walking stick..."

"I shave my head!"

"Oh dear. My brother did that. It looked terrible. I do hope he's grown it out again."

Zuko removed his hat slowly, fire roaring into existence as he took up a bending form. I let my eyes widen. "Oh good, hair. A huge improvement."

He gestured threateningly towards me. "He's mine Azula."

"By all means, brother." I backed up another few paces. "Age before beauty."

Via Azula's memories I was aware of all Zuko's tells, those little signs that betrayed his actual feelings. Not that it was usually very hard, he typically wore his heart on his sleeve. Mind you, unlike Azula, I was willing to at least consider the possibility that Zuko might have changed a little in the last three years. Still, it wasn't hard to tell that I'd just stoked his temper a bit more. It took me a moment to realise that he probably thought that the last remark was a jab over his scarred face. Oops. I should probably try to be less provocative in the future.

...but that wouldn't be any fun...

* * *

I backed up again, looking along the line of adversaries I seemed to have accumulated. It was almost comical - every time I turned around in this fight, someone else had turned up trying to kick my ass.

Okay, it wasn't actually very amusing.

"I feel terribly dangerous, what with all six of you ganging up on me." I did my best to hide my worries from my face and voice. "Why what did I ever do to -" My finger swung along the line from Iroh over to Sokka before swinging back to point at Toph. "- hmm, to you? Why we haven't even been introduced."

"Name's Toph," she corrected that little oversight with a shrug. "And you messed with my friends."

"I suppose that works. I'm Azula. Pleased to meet you."

"This isn't a party, Azula."

"If you say so Zuko." I smirked at him and then looked over at Sokka and Katara, who were flanking Aang. "And I don't recall doing anything to you two, unless you're still mad about Omashu and I still think that that reflects far worse on you than it ever did to me, kidnapper."

"I told you, we didn't kidnap him!" Katara protested.

I shrugged. "It all ended well so I suppose I could believe you, although someone else doesn't to judge by what they're saying about you three stealing away a Gaoling heiress..."

"No one stole me away!" Toph shouted, rather indignantly. The ground rumbled.

"You? Oh come now, this Toph Bei Fong is apparently some helpess little girl," I assured her. "Who could possibly mistake you for her, despite the coincidence in names?" She looked uncertain if she should be flattered or outraged.

"Don't trust her," Sokka snapped. "She's from the Fire Nation!"

"And just look who you're allied to," I riposted, nodding at my uncle and brother. "The eldest sons of Fire Lords Azulon and Ozai. So will you turn on them for their parentage after you've disposed of me?"

Sokka blinked. "Sounds like a plan to me!"

I sighed. "That's terrible tactics, you know. For future reference, it's usually wiser to team up with the weaker antagonist against the stronger. Instead you sided with your most implacable hunter and a famous general against a lone girl."

Toph snorted. "She's got a point."

* * *

"It serves you right for trying to capture Aang," Katara told me off.

Okay. That ticked me off a little. So I smiled at little Miss Self Righteous. "You're jumping to conclusions there, my dear," I told her. "For all that you know it might be your boomerang-wielding boyfriend over there that I was planning to drag off to some secluded dungeon to have my wicked way with."

There was a choking sound from the direction of Sokka, whose jaw was hanging slack, but he was drowned out by snickering from Toph.

I laughed a little myself at the colour rising in Katara's face before adding: "Although I admit that I don't have a convenient dungeon and that my wicked way probably needs a lot of practise. But I'm sure he wouldn't have any complaints about helping me with th-"

"HE'S MY BROTHER!" she screamed in horror, finally finding her voice.

I let that echo around the ravaged street, weighing possible responses. 'I'm not one to judge'? No. That would be fun of course, but it would be bad tactics to hit her where she was alerted. Instead, to keep her off balance.

"Ah, I see. Well in that case I offer you my sincere apologies for the unwarranted assumption. I can quite imagine how mortified I would be if someone thought the same of myself and my brother, and causing you that embarassment was not my intention." Lies, all of it. Then my smile widened even more, bright and innocent. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw Zuko tense reflexively. "Would it make it better if it was you that I was going to take away to slake my lusts upon?"

"NO!" My goodness. And I'd thought her eyes were wide with horror and shock before. Perhaps she's homophobic. Then again, at fourteen who wouldn't be? All those hormones... "I -! You -!"

I ignored the red face of the Avatar, whose blush was reaching right up to the arrow on his forehead, and the now hysterically laughing Toph. "You don't need to shout, there's nothing wrong with my hearing."

That mild rebuke left Katara twitching and speechless while Toph rolled helplessly on the ground. Well, apparently helpless anyway. An earthbender in the dirt... enough said.

In any event, the conversation had managed to break the tension and while I was still surrounded, I don't think anyone seriously expected a resumption of hostilities. I turned to Iroh and let my smile slip somewhat. "Since we seem to have a moment of peace, Uncle, could I persuade to surrender yourself to my custody? I even brought some of your favorite tea..."

"That's very thoughtful of you, princess," he told me jovially - resulting in astonished looks from the others there. Then his face hardened. "However, I don't think I'll be going with you."

"Well you can't blame a girl for trying." I lowered my guard slightly and used my left hand to reach into my jacket - something that got a curious, almost anticipatory look from Sokka. Possibly he thought I was about to remove the garment - and retrieve two packages I had been carrying ever since I left Gaoling. "Take it as gift then. You prefer ginseng as I recall, although I got some White Dragon as well."

He caught them, looking quite astonished. "Even more thoughtful than I had realised," he confessed. "I am most grateful."

"Not at all, it would have been a shame if it got scorched. Besides, you are my favorite uncle."

Sokka nodded wisely. "I like her more than you," he told Zuko quietly, earning himself an offended glare from my elder brother. "What? You never offered us tea."

"You don't know her, she's evil!"

"So, is it going to be evil tea?"

"Argh!"

Zuko was screaming in frustration, all was right in Azula's world. I, typically, wasn't quite satisfied. I suppose I have higher standards than she did.

"Speaking of family ties," I told Iroh, "I take them seriously enough to interpret father's commands regarding yourself and great-grandfather over there a little liberally but there are limits to my latitude."

He nodded in understanding. "You haven't always been so concerned for your family, princess."

I looked away, thinking of my own family. "That was before I realised how little of it was left." I let bitterness fill my voice.

Sokka cleared his throat and looked around at the still blushing Aang, quietly fuming Katara and Toph (who was finally through with her laughing fit but still laid on the ground). "Uh, we're not going to keep fighting?"

"Don't ask me. I didn't start anything."

Everyone looked at me.

"No, seriously. It was those two who double-teamed me." I lowered my guard entirely and pointed at Aang and Zuko. "I never even tried to hurt them, the whole time."

Zuko spluttered indignantly, apparently beyond words. Aang simply seemed shamefaced.

"Well I'm done fighting," I assured them. "I admit capturing you would be in my best interests... at least in the short term... but I've no illusions that I can defeat great-grandfather and uncle at the same time. Even the rest of you would be a problem without -"

Sokka waved his hand to stop me. "Wait, did I miss something?"

"...possibly. What's the problem?"

"That's twice you've referred to your great-grandfather being here."

I nodded. "You're standing right next to him."

Given that Sokka was at the end of the little line, he wasn't spoilt for choice. "Aang! He's your..."

The expressions on Katara's face was priceless. Far more amusing that even her earlier expressions.

* * *

"Uncle, are you _sure_ that we have to make Zuko the Fire Lord?"

Iroh nodded solemnly and I shrugged. "Well, if we must then we must."

"What are you saying, Azula?" my brother demanded suspiciously.

"I'm not saying you'd be my first choice as Fire Lord," I admitted to Zuko. "Or second... or third... well, let's just say you aren't my favorite choice. However, if putting up with you on the throne is the price of keeping the Fire Nation intact then I will just have to live with it."

For some reason he seemed to doubt my sincerity. "What guarentee do I have that you wouldn't suddenly decide to kill me and take the throne."

I sighed. "The same you had when I promised not to kill any of your precious turtle ducks when you were in exile?"

"But... you never promised that! What did you do to the turtle-ducks!"

Wow. He actually just said that? I turned to Iroh who was manfully trying to hide the temptation to snigger at Zuko. (Sokka wasn't even trying. If he and Toph keep rolling over each other on the ground they're going to need get married). "Uncle, why does he assume that I would hurt innocent turtle-ducks?"

He made no reply and when I looked around at the rest of the little band everyone was looking away from me. Ty Lee was actually whistling innocently.

"...I really need to work on my reputation."

* * *

"Somehow the image of Zuko on the Fire Lord's throne, surrounded by turtleducks is somehow still preferable to my father there stroking his beard and laughing maniacally... with this as my family, how did I turn out to be sane?" And how did I say that with a straight face?

Mai looked bored, which wasn't really a surprise. "...couldn't say," she replied drily.

Ty Lee tugged on my sleeve. "Do you really think he'd have turtleducks around his throne, Azula? That would be so cute!"

I exchanged looks with Mai. She shrugged as if to say: 'you raised the topic, you deal with it'. "Yes, Ty Lee. It would be... cute."

"For the turtle-ducks!" the bouncy girl declared firmly.


	15. The Edge of Decision

A/N: Just a little Battletech short I wrote a while ago.

* * *

Esther von Greifenberg knew that this was the critical moment.

She'd been taking a hammering through the whole duel. Isaac Teng's Vindicator was the same mass as her 'Mech, but it had far superior armour and firepower. Almost every shot from the Ceres Arms Extended Range PPC had struck home, peeling armour away from the frame of the spindly-limbed Hatchetman.

She'd scored a few hits spraying fire across the Capelllan machine with the antiquated Defiance Killer autocannon and even landing a few hits with the medium lasers, but nothing that had penetrated Teng's protection. He seemed not to have even noticed.

Sweat was pouring off Esther. She'd had to take a brief moment behind cover to snatch a mouthful of tepid water from one of the sports bottles crammed into webbing around her cockpit or she'd probably be critically dehydrated by now. As it was, the absorbant padding beneath her was probably going to need replacement. The stink was indescribable.

Normally the Hatchetman's heatsinks would have prevented any serious heat-build up. However not only had Esther had one removed months ago, to fit modern ammunition storage into the salvaged HCT-3F, but she was running at only sixty percent dissipation. The thermometer display was yellow - an improvement from the earlier red. Three times, as Teng forced the pace of the battle - wisely refusing to close into the reach of the axe gripped in the Hatchetman's right fist - Esther had taken the risk of over-riding the safeties on her fusion reactor, accepting the very real risk of overheated autocannon cartridges detonating in their magazine, tearing the left side of the BattleMech apart.

The celluar storage would have limited the damage, but without ammuntion for the autocannon she'd be reduced to the lasers - assuming their control feeds weren't severed by the explosion.

It didn't matter now.

Teng had made his mistake - backpedalling around a jutting stone slab that she was using for cover, he was barely a hundred metres away and his attempt to outflank her meant that he was at just the right angle.

The Capellan did his best to stop her: missiles and lasers did nothing but the ER PPC tore away the armour of the Hatchetman's right leg and for a terrible instant Esther felt the 'Mech begin to spin out of control as one of the jump jet vents fused closed. She was turning anyway and without that thruster to provide countering force she'd miss her landing - something sure to be disasterous for her.

Afterwards, Esther could never have said whether it was instinct or blind luck that had her finger close around one of the triggers on her control sticks. The Defiance Killer spat armour-piercing shells wildly into the air, the recoil just barely enough to keep the forty-five tons of Battlemech on roughly the right path.

She'd only have one attempt at this. Teng was already trying to overcome the more than forty kph momentum of his Vindicator, trying to break off.

Everything hung on one decision.

Esther exhaled slowly as the Hatchetman's feet descended past the shoulders of the Vindicator and then she jerked her arm savagely around inside the waldo mechanism that dominated the right hand side of her cockpit, muscles screaming as she forced them against the multiple-gravities that the braking power of the remaining jumpjets were imposing.

The hatchet from which her Mech took its name - three tons of carefully crafted alloys, powered by the advanced myomers that Esther had kept well inside their optimal temperature bracket - missed the optimal cut: directly down into the domed skull of the Vindicator and through Teng's cockpit.

What it managed was almost as good: the barely sharpened edge struck the other 'Mech's shoulder and tore through the weaker armour that protected the rear of the joint before sheering through layer after layer of the shielding that kept the enormous temperatures of the fusion reactor from contact with the outside world.

The air that came into sudden contact with the inner elements was superheated, converting it to plasma that vented in the distinctive silver explosion that mechwarriors had feared for half a thousand years.

Esther's Hatchetman staggered backwards as she brought the gyro under control.

Isaac Teng baked inside his cockpit and Esther von Greifenburg cursed as she saw millions of C-bills of potential salvage gutted.


	16. Summoning Sekerei

In retrospect it was Miss von Zerbst's summoning where things grew strange.

No, that wasn't quite true. It had been obvious at the time that things were going to go awry, just not in what fashion. Jean Colbert had overseen quite a number of Springtime Summoning Rituals now and this one had been running almost true to form, the only fly in the ointment being the undercurrent of sniggering among the students about the likely outcome of Miss de la Valliere's summoning. He had diplomatically ignored it as long as it was no more than background whispering - the Duke's daughter had enough to handle without being labelled a teacher's pet student.

But no one had really expected that Miss von Zerbt would do anything unusual. Remarkable, yes - daughter of a distinguished lineage and already evidently a strong fire mage - but there would be nothing surprising about her summoning a magical familiar. A salamander perhaps?

But no. Barely had the lush bodied (no, BAD Colbert!) young Germanian cast the summoning than a young man fell from the sky.

That had been cause for quite a bit of exclamation from the other children. Most, seeing the plain black pants and jacket that the poor fellow wore over an equally unremarkable white shirt had written him off as a commoner. More than a few had made sly comments on the topic of Kirche summoning herself a man - some had merited a mildly reproving look from the Professor. (Privately he admitted that it would have no more than temporary effect upon them of course). A foreign man, it would appear since he did not speak Halkegenian, but instead some exotic tongue - from the east perhaps? - and also clearly an ailing one, as he appeared to be in the grip of a fever.

And then Kirche had performed the Contract Servant spell. Flawlessly, of course. While the man had appeared reluctant at first, he acquiesed eventually and...

Colbert refilled his glass and sipped on the contents. One advantage of all the glassware he was using for his chemical experiments was that it was easy to hide a still. There was ample justification for wanting to distill for certain reagents, but of course there was the most valuable of reasons for one, and Colbert's nerves had required a lot of steadying, his first year at the Academy. The bottle at the back of one shelf had aged well and was now almost palatable.

Wings. Wings of fire. Fire, that the young man - still clearly delirious - had generated of himself. No doubt there would be hell to pay once it was publicised that Miss von Zerbst had summoned a powerful fire mage from his own lands and family. Triangle class? Perhaps even square? Colbert had never raised wings of fire himself, but then, he saw little point in doing so. He thought he probably could, with a little experimentation.

And then Tabitha of Gallia - who was at least a Royal Bastard, judging by her hair and might be a great deal more (there were at least two little seen Gallian princesses in the right age bracket) - summoned a woman, one with a marking on her forehead that might already have been a familiar mark as it disappeared following the contracting. She was clad in a white shirt and a white coat - the latter stained with what was evidently blood - and nothing else.

Certain of the less mature students - most of the male students in fact - had made much of that.

Miss Tabitha herself had seemed less than disturbed. But then, even the wings of ice that formed when she completed the contract did not disturb her apparent equilibrium. Her familiar collapsing into hysterics did elicit a reaction at least - Colbert was relieved by that. The girl otherwise so reserved he might have thought her spellshocked.

The unexpected was sufficiently expected now that Guiche Gramont's summoning another human was barely noteworthy. Except of course, to Montmorency Montmorency, who had decided his summoning of a tiny blonde girl was cause enough to slap the boy across the face. It was possibly undeserved in this case - for all his faults, Mr Gramont was probably not guilty of that sort of behaviour - but in fairness, he probably deserved it for something.

The wings, in this case, were formed of grass that grew from the ground to distinguish the girl in the same fashion as the earlier summonings. Colbert had wiped at his face then. A very rare sort of magic - some mix of Earth and Water? - and in a child who he would have been astonished to see do something as simple as levitate a cushion. No doubt her parents would have words with both Mr Gramont and with the Academy over this mess.

He was tempted to call the entire thing off before the Academy managed to embroil Tristain in a war with these people's homeland (he was sure from their few words that all three were speaking the same tongue, strongly indicating a shared nation of origin) but the traditions of the Springtime Summoning were ironclad and so he permitted Miss Montmorency to make her own summoning.

The appearance of a blonde who in body was a match for Miss von Zerbst, but in attitude perhaps closer to Miss de la Valliere was not entirely a surprise. However, the woman screaming in anger and immediately assaulting her young summoner with powerful water magic was unprecedented. Colbert had moved swiftly to vaporise the torrent of water being conjured and students scattered prudently in all directions.

In the end, it took the combined efforts of Miss Tabitha, Mr Gramont and their familiars to restrain the woman so that Miss Montmorency could complete the contract. A scandal that her family would probably not wish publicised but that every single student there would no doubt relate to their kin as soon as they were able.

Miss Montmorency's familiar displayed water wings - no surprise there - and a storm of tears. Colbert had finally had to order Mr Gramont and Miss Tabitha to assist in conveying the woman to the infirmary, Miss von Zerbst accompanying them to provide moral support to Miss Montmorency.

Colbert shook his head. Such a mess, such a mess. Looking back on it from the comfort of his laboratory did not help in any way. And after that, all of that, there had been Miss de la Valliere's summoning.

Just the memory of that was enough to have the professor refill his glass to the brim...


End file.
